First DB Challenge

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

I decided to go with a pistachio pastry cream for my filling. I had planned on using a orange blossom water infused honey glaze to assemble the croquembouche, but when that never thickened, I defaulted to dark chocolate. The assembled piece was then drizzled with the very thin honey glaze and sprinkled with the leftover crushed pistachio pieces. Spun sugar decorations were in the making to also decorate this piece but during the heating process I had to leave home so that was never completed.

All in all, the challenge wasn't very difficult for a novice baker as myself. While I had made lots of creme patisserie in the past in numerous flavors, I had never attempted choux pastry. I was quite happy the results of this challenge, while not as aesthetically pleasing as I had intended, it sure did taste delicious.