The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

I have a huge craving for "puffs" (as how we call these in Taiwan) ever since I arrived at Chile, the only place that has them is Le Petit Patisserie on Av. Vitacura. Never thought I'll be making them myself but YEY for Daring Kitchen and Cat for giving me the "need" to try it. 

The original recipe can be found  here.

This recipe has three major components, the choux (puff), the crème patissiere (cream filling), and the glaze used for mounting or decoration. I followed the recipe of all three components as is, except that I made orange-vanilla cream cheese filling as I wanted to chill them and make a choux-cheese-cake montée.
 

Orange Vanilla Cream Cheese Filling

2 cup (225 ml.) whole milk
2 Tbsp. cornstarch

12 Tbsp. (100 g.) sugar
2 large egg
4 large egg yolks
4 Tbsp. (60 g.) unsalted butter
2 Tsp. Vanilla

1 stick of cream cheese (8oz or 225 g.)

1 Tbsp. Orange zest (I used orange zest wine I made last week)

1. Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ cup of milk.
2. Combine the remaining milk 3/4 with the sugar in a saucepan; bring to boil; remove from heat.

3. Beat the whole egg and cream cheese, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture.
4. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.

5. Return the remaining milk to boil (add the orange zest now unless you have it in liquid form).
6. Pour in the entire hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.

7. Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil.
8. Remove from heat and beat in the butter, orange wine and vanilla. 

Do not refrigerate the chesse cream until it is filled in the choux.

Pate a Choux (Yield: about 28)

¾ cup (175 ml.) water
6 Tbsp. (85 g.) unsalted butter
¼ Tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup (125 g.) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

Pre-heat oven to 425◦F/220◦C degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Preparing batter:
1. Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally for 1 min.

2. Remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.

3. Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

4. Add in an egg at a time, stirr until the egg is well absorbed and then add in the next egg. The dough should have a shinny appearance. Repeat until all 4 eggs are in.

Piping:

1. Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip (I piped directly from the bag opening without a tip). 

2. Pipe choux about 1 inch-part in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high about 1 inch wide.

3. Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.

If you dont have  a pastry bag, as I didn't you may try to scoop it and then smooth the tips. 

option: Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with pinch of salt).

Baking:
1. Bake the choux at 425◦F/220◦C degrees until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.
2. Lower the temperature to 350◦F/180◦C degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

I baked them in 2 different sizes for better assembly.

Filling:
When you are ready to assemble your piece montée, using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Filled choux can now be refrigerated for 1hr so that the cheese filling hardens.

And now you may decorate it with the Caramel Glaze, also it is used for sticking the choux together. I think the traditional way is to spin it around the final "cone" but since my husband is a kindda almost has diabetes so I try to cut low on sugar or use substitutes whenever possible.

Hard Caramel Glaze:
1 cup (225 g.) sugar
½ teaspoon lemon juice

Combine and cook until brown. Use immediately before it cools off and hardens.

And it tastes soooo good!!! The orange zing gave it the "light" and happy tone. I strongly suggest anyone who's not a huge fan of "milky cream taste" to try this.

I think I might even use the left over puffs and try something salty for tomorrow, perhaps smoked salmon with cream cheese (again?). LOL