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Miso Pumpkin Croquembouche
Recipe by Mimi Wong
Try this delicious Miso Pumpkin Croquembouche
- Steps
- Ingredients
Ingredients
Spiced Cocoa Craquelin
Pate Choux
Miso Pumpkin Crème Patisserie
Caramel
Garnish
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Steps
- Preheat oven to 220°C. Line two baking trays with baking paper.
- To prepare the Spiced Cocoa Craquelin, combine all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Massage the butter into the dry ingredients until a ball of dough is formed.
- Roll out dough between two pieces of baking paper to a thickness of 2mm.
- Place in freezer to harden, roughly 15 minutes. When firm, use a 3cm round cutter to cut at least 20 craquelin disks. Place on a baking tray.
- For the Pate Choux, place water, milk, and butter into a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter is melted and steam is just beginning to appear, add flour, sugar, and salt together and stir vigorously to combine. Beat the mixture to break up lumps of flour, once you see a film develop on the bottom of the pan, beat for two more minutes to ensure the flour is cooked through.
- Transfer mixture to a stand mixer with a paddle attachment and beat at a low to medium speed to cool the dough. Once the stand mixer bowl is cool to touch, add the eggs gradually, ensuring the eggs are emulsified with the dough before adding more. All of the egg may not be required. The dough should be glossy and texture should leave a ‘V’ shape on the end of the paddle. Transfer to piping bag.
- On each baking tray, pipe two rows of five dollops of choux dough with roughly a 2cm diameter. Place a disk of craquelin on top of each dollop. Place into oven then immediately lower oven temperature to 190°C. Cook in oven for 20 minutes then rotate trays to ensure even cooking. Cook for an additional ten minutes then switch oven off and leave oven door slightly open to dry out the pastry for ten minutes.
- Cut a whole Kent pumpkin into quarters and place one of the quarters into a microwave-safe bowl, cover with cling film and cook in the microwave for 8-10 minutes or until a pairing knife can be easily inserted through the thickest part. Remove from microwave and remove the skin of the pumpkin then using a potato masher, mash the flesh into a small saucepan. Disperse the puree and let simmer on medium-low heat to allow as much moisture as possible to evaporate, stir occasionally.
- In a small saucepan, melt and brown the butter on medium low heat. Once the milk solids are visible and golden, pour into a bowl and place into freezer to set.
- Place milk in a medium saucepan on medium heat and bring to a gentle simmer. Meanwhile, whisk yolks, cornstarch, sugar, ground ginger and miso together in a small bowl until mixture is combined and turns a pale colour. Temper the egg mixture with ½ a cup of warm milk, add the remaining egg in three more stages. Return the mixture into medium saucepan on medium heat, whisking continuously until the crème patisserie is thickened. Remove from the heat once you see visible tracks left behind by your whisk, the residual heat from the pot should continue to cook and thicken the mixture.
- Combine pumpkin puree and brown butter into your crème patisserie. Pour the mixture through a fine mesh sieve and into a mixing bowl set above an ice bath and stir vigorously to cool. Once cool to touch, place into a piping bag and reserve in fridge.
- To prepare the choux, remove the choux buns from the oven and immediately turn over. Pierce a small hole on the bottom of each bun to release any steam from the center and create a divot for piping.
- Pipe each bun with the miso pumpkin crème patisserie until you just begin to feel a slight resistance against the tip of your piping bag, taking care not to overfill.
- To cook the Caramel, heat up sugar and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once the water is evaporated and the bubbles of the mixture begin to enlarge and dissipate slowly, reduce the heat to medium low. Once the caramel is a light golden colour, remove the saucepan from the heat for 5 minutes. Return the caramel to a low heat to maintain liquid viscosity.
- To assemble, dip the craquelin side of each bun into the hot caramel carefully, let any excess caramel run then twist the bun upside to cease the dripping. Return the buns onto baking paper lined trays, craquelin side up. Let caramel harden as you move through the buns.
- Assemble the Croquembouche by using the caramel as an adhesive. The number of buns required for each layer of this choux are 6,6,5,4. The first layer is constructed by dipping the sides of each choux lightly to adhere to one another adjacently. The consequent layers are built upon by both a combination of a light dipping of caramel on the sides and bottom of each bun, take care to drip off any excess to avoid any thick layers of caramel.
- Spread the fondant to a small disk, place your food colouring in the centre then enclose and knead to disperse through dough evenly. Halve the dough; create one half into a cross shape then the other into a lop-sided cylinder. Adhere the cylinder to the center of the cross in a perpendicular manner. This should mimic the stem of a pumpkin.
- Place fondant stem as the crown of your miso pumpkin croquembouche.
