- Hi, I'm Amy,
and this is a delicious French pastry known
as a croquembouche.
As you can see, this is one of the most beautiful
but technical and labor-intensive desserts around.
Today, I'm gonna attempt to make something
that has never been done before.
I'm gonna attempt to make a giant, doughy, cheesy,
rich, insane-looking croquembouche.
Is it even possible to turn this sweet delicacy
into a savory delight?
I have no idea, but I'm willing to give it my all.
(upbeat music)
So kicking things off,
I'm gonna start with making my dough recipe.
We've got our bread flour, instant yeast, sugar,
just to get the yeast going, and salt for taste.
So I just mix that up until it's nicely distributed.
I'm gonna pop the oil in the water, which is room temp.
Stir that all together until we have a nice shaggy dough.
So I'm hoping to recreate a similar look
to a traditional croquembouche,
but this is gonna be made of bread dough.
Just love the smell of yeast. Is that weird?
And now that's kind of come together,
I'll give it a whizz in the mixer.
If you don't have a mixer, that's absolutely fine.
You can just do it by hand.
So I'm looking for the dough to be nice and elastic
at this point.
Warm.
Lightly flour the surface, just so it doesn't stick.
But I don't wanna add too much flour
because it will change the ratio of the dough.
I love kneading to get any tension out.
You just give the dough a real good slap,
then you roll it forward, and then pull it back over itself.
So, you know your dough is ready when you can roll it
into a ball, give it a bit of a knuckle,
and the dimple bounces back.
Yay! Put a little bit of olive oil in this bowl.
Pop this in here and give it a turn.
Got your little baby dough ball.
You have to nurture it, massage it, love the dough.
And cover this now. Just prevents it from drying out.
And we're gonna leave that somewhere fairly warm
to double in size for about an hour.
(relaxing music)
So now our baby is all grown up.
It's time to stuff them with some cheese.
Ooh! Look at that.
Flour the surface a little, and then pour her out.
Just for ease, I'm gonna cut this dough into four
and just work with one quarter at a time.
Roll this into a sausage.
Nice sausage. And then just chop him into bite sized chunks.
So I'm gonna take a small chunk of cheddar.
I'm using vegan cheddar,
but you can use any hard, melting cheese that you like.
Pop it in the middle.
Pinch the edges to close it like a little tiny envelope.
And give it a roll.
1 down, 149 to go.
So this part of the recipe, this is my bread and butter.
I know how to make this.
But all the next steps, I have never done that before.
So this is the calm before the storm.
Each of these are about the size of a ping pong ball,
and I'm stuffing them with about a teaspoon of cheese.
I'm leaving about an inch between each ball
because they're gonna rise.
Okay, this is taking a while,
but I do have some friends that can help.
Kelly and Mimo?
- You weigh, I'll stuff.
- Okay. Wow. Look at you.
Well done, guys. Super quick.
Now it's time to glaze.
Traditionally, egg wash is egg,
but I'm making a vegan version.
So I'm gonna mix almond milk with a touch of maple syrup.
Give that a whisk with this teeny tiny whisk
and teeny tiny jug.
I love painting, so I feel quite at home.
So far so good.
So now these are ready to bake.
I'm gonna throw them in the oven at full whack.
475 degrees Fahrenheit.
These were in the oven for about five minutes.
They're nice and golden. These look perfect.
So now we're getting to the tricky part.
A traditional croquembouche
has spun sugar all the way around.
I'm doing a savory version,
so I'm gonna try and recreate that same look with cheese.
So to get started with this, we're gonna do a little test.
We have these various different cheeses.
I don't know how they're gonna act.
I'm just gonna test them and see which is the most stringy.
So this is supposed to be a parmesan. Parmesan.
We're gonna go ahead and do the same with mozzarella.
The cheddar shreds, okay.
I like how this is a little rainbow of cheese.
So I'm hoping that when these are melted,
I'll be able to pull them into beautiful ribbons
and wrap them around the tower.
Almost like wrapping lights around a Christmas tree.
Okay, so now we've got all the cheese on the baking tray.
We're gonna melt it. Or try and melt it.
We're gonna see what happens when this goes in the oven.
(upbeat drum music)
So now my cheese is melting.
I'm gonna try and construct a mini tower just
to see what I've got myself in for.
(mischievous music)
I think this might be harder than anticipated.
I'm hoping that the cheese will help to glue this together
because at the moment, it's not a very stable structure.
It works stacking a mini tower, but I'm gonna try doing 150,
and I feel like gravity is gonna conspire against me.
(tense music)
Hmm. Varying degrees of success here.
This I can't even take off of the tray.
This is just a gluey mess.
This is bad. You cannot pick this up.
This one just barely even melted.
It's retained all of its structure.
The most promising is probably this one,
but it's the best of a bad bunch.
No, this hasn't worked.
This is just a big sticky, ugly mess.
So this was a fail.
It's time to go back to the drawing board.
Whilst I was happy
with how the dough balls resembled cream puffs
of a traditional croquembouche,
I was losing faith in my ability
to pull off the rest of the elements.
How are these gonna stack?
What can I add to make this taste delicious?
Also, this needs to look amazing.
I buckled down and did some research,
mocked up a few sketches,
scanned the Tasty kitchen, and came up with some new ideas
with a new found sense of optimism.
So instead of melting it to make ribbons,
I'm thinking if I melt the cheese
and put it in a piping bag,
I'll be able to precisely pipe strands.
Let's try it.
So I've got some cheddar here.
I'm gonna pop it in the pan and melt it over a low heat.
I'm hoping it'll turn into like a cheese fondue situation.
It's melted well.
It's feeling kind of gluey, but gluey is good.
So I'm gonna put this in the piping bag
and test it on a new mini tower.
Normally I'm used to doing this with icing,
but this is my first time piping cheese.
Let's see if this cheese can stick two balls together.
Mm. Okay. Looking promising.
Okay, so two have worked.
I'm feeling like I should lay it like bricks,
sort of stagger them.
I'm not an engineer,
but I feel like doing it like this
will give it the most structural integrity.
On a traditional croquembouche,
spun sugar, in addition to being an adhesive,
adds a bit of pizazz, a bit of je nais sais quois,
a little bit of razzle dazzle.
(record scratches)
(groans) I'm sorry.
This is like the ugliest wedding cake I've ever seen.
So this color is kind of cartoonish.
This looks like a cheesy nightmare.
This is not what we're going for.
This piping started promising but ended in a disaster.
This is not the savory croquembouche of my dreams.
(upbeat medieval music)
Okay, so I have a new plan and this time it's gonna work.
This new plan will combine style, substance, function.
The new plan is parmesan crisps.
I feel like these are gonna elevate the whole look
of the tower.
Sprinkle a touch of parmesan in these mini circles
to make these lacey crisps.
I'm just gonna bake these on 350 degrees Fahrenheit just
for a couple of minutes until they're brown
around the edges.
Okay, so these look good.
I'm just gonna jimmy this under this guy.
And I feel like I should be able to manipulate this
into a nice sort of flower shape.
Just gives it more texture. So cute.
I'm just gonna keep placing these around,
fill in all the gaps.
I'm liking the look of this.
I'm happy with this.
I feel like it's not all the way there,
but I think this will work on a bigger scale,
especially as I'm gonna combine it
with two extra ideas that I have.
So I'm gonna take all of these balls
and attempt to make my giant cheesy croquembouche.
(upbeat jazz music)
So I'm feeling good about those parmesan crisps.
But what is a dough ball without garlic butter? Nothing.
So I'm gonna go ahead and make the garlic sauce,
and it's gonna give it a beautiful shine and glisten
as well as make it taste amazing.
I'm gonna melt the butter in the pan.
This may look like a lot of garlic,
but once you cook garlic,
it goes really sweet and juicy and caramelized.
And that'll take out some of that sharp bite.
That already smells so good.
The more garlic, the better. You cannot have enough garlic.
Now the garlic's nice and cooked out,
I'm gonna add a sprinkling of parsley.
We take up the heat, stir it in.
So now this is ready, I'm just gonna pull this in the jug.
And this will be our fountain receptacle.
Let me set this aside and build our tower.
So I have this cone,
which I think will provide the structural integrity
that we need, as well as giving it a harmonious look.
So I'm gonna use these toothpicks
and then pressing the dough ball on like so.
Oh, yeah. That works.
So my system is winging it. I'm just winging it.
And I'm hoping that it's not gonna crumble
under the pressure.
I'm hoping that I'm not gonna crumble under the pressure.
It's kind of like doing a puzzle,
an edible, delicious puzzle.
Hey, and that's our first row done.
I feel like I should have done some more calculations
before starting the build.
Oh, no. We have our first casualty.
The bottom row has collapsed.
I think this is a toothpick issue.
I think this is an easy solve.
I'm just gonna put it back and hope for the best.
Okay, nothing that can't be solved with a toothpick.
So this isn't as easy as it looks.
I'm actually having to think about the exact ball
to go in the exact right place.
It's a bit of a game of Tetris.
(game music)
It's looking so good. It's exceeded my expectations so far.
I feel like it can only get better from here.
So I started by using these half toothpicks,
and then they just kept falling out.
So we've gone full whack with the full length toothpick,
and that's working really well just
to keep them nice and stable.
It seems to be going to plan.
I feel like this is Everest
and we've nearly reached the summit.
I just hope I don't get altitude poisoning near the top.
So close!
It's really satisfying that the taller you get,
the less dough balls you need to complete a row.
I would show up to a party with two of these under my arms.
Keep the party going all night.
Three or four more rows.
This has been a real journey.
It's been an exploration of myself.
I've gotten to know my levels of patience.
I feel like my energy levels are waning now.
I'm gonna have to eat some dough balls
to have the stamina to finish.
Mmm!
Okay, the final rose.
You think you're close
and then you realize no, you're not actually not that close.
This has like 200 balls on this thing,
but this is great for any celebrations of life.
Weddings, birthdays, anniversaries...
The final row.
The star on top of the Christmas tree.
So the assembly is done, but we're not quite finished.
We're gonna add the delicious garlic butter
and turn this baby into a flowing fountain of decadence.
I'm gonna slowly pour the butter over the top
and hope it gets a nice even covering
I'm nervous because there's only one chance
to do this right.
Here it goes.
(suspenseful classical music)
Oh my God.
Wow! That does look really good.
Think I'm gonna go in with a brush
and just make sure everything is nicely coated.
I feel like this has gone a lot better than I anticipated.
It looks really epic.
I feel like I'm in the presence of a great beauty.
The Mona Lisa, the leaning tower of cheese-a.
And it's gonna look even better when I add my cheese crisps.
(mellow jazz music)
So now we have our parmesan crisps.
They're gonna go into cute little flowers
and go in all these gaps.
Hey, just folding them up into flowers
and then finding a space on the tower to pop them in.
Stay.
I'm just gonna go all the way around,
decorating wherever there's a space.
This is really adding texture
which elevates the whole thing.
If you have a spare 24 hours,
I definitely think you should try this at home.
So it's really coming together.
It is so much better than I expected.
I did not know that I was capable
of making this cheesy croquembouche.
This has been an adventure.
And now the final parm crisp.
Tada! What a beauty. I've done it. I'm a genius.
The first ever savory, cheesy croquembouche.
I'm so excited to give it a try.
So let's see if it tastes as good as it looks.
Mm!
Mmmm!
Mm!
That's so good.
It's like a pizza in a ball.
It's fluffy. It's fresh. It's garlicy.
This dough is perfect.
It just pulls right apart, and it's so soft inside
with the perfect crunch on the outside.
And that garlic butter is just stunning.
I almost don't wanna eat this
because it just looks so great, but I will.
I'm gonna bag this up and take it home
with me all the way back to England
to share with my friends there.
Just kidding. I'm gonna share it with all my friends here.
Thanks so much for watching, guys.
This was so much fun.
Check me out on Buzzfeed UK.
I've been AmyTasty. Until next time. Bye!
(upbeat music)