Banana coconut filled Choux Piece Montée - A Daring Baker's Challenge

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.

 When I heard that this month's Daring Baker's Challenge was going to be involving choux pastry, I got pretty excited as I've always wanted to try to make it. Then I realized we were going to be using them to build a piece montée and became even more excited.

I love doing creative things in the kitchen, but I feel that baking doesn't usually allow me to be very creative as I have to follow all kinds of rules in order for it to come out correctly, hence the reason why I don't do too much baking unless it's for these challenges :D.

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For the Vanilla Crème Patissiere (Half Batch)

1 cup (225 ml.) whole milk

2 Tbsp. cornstarch

6 Tbsp. (100 g.) sugar

1 large egg

2 large egg yolks

2 Tbsp. (30 g.) unsalted butter

1 Tsp. Vanilla

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

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

Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.

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

Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

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

For Egg Wash: 1 egg and pinch of salt

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

Preparing batter:

Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.

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

Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly.

Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny.

As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking like lightly buttered mashed potatoes.

It is at this point that you will add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.

Piping:

Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip (I piped directly from the bag opening without a tip). Pipe choux about 1 inch-part in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high about 1 inch wide.

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.

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

Baking:

Bake the choux at 425◦F/220◦C degrees until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.

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.

Can be stored in a airtight box overnight.

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. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.

Use one of these to top your choux and assemble your piece montée.

Hard Caramel Glaze:

1 cup (225 g.) sugar

½ teaspoon lemon juice

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan with a metal kitchen spoon stirring until the sugar resembles wet sand. Place on medium heat; heat without stirring until sugar starts to melt around the sides of the pan and the center begins to smoke. Begin to stir sugar. Continue heating, stirring occasionally until the sugar is a clear, amber color. Remove from heat immediately; place bottom of pan in ice water to stop the cooking. Use immediately.

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 The recipes above are straight from The Daring Kitchen post for this month's challenge. If you would like to check out what the others have done and the recipes please go to The Daring Kitchen website!

I didn't deviate too much from the standard recipes this time. I wasn't sure how whole wheat flour would work so I just used unbleached all purpose flour for the dough. As for the filling I followed the vanilla cream filling recipe but added 1 ripe banana smashed and about 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut to the mix, making it taste very much like the filling in banana cream pie or coconut cream pie, just mixed together (this was for the hubby as they are his favorite types of pie and I had the ingredients already :D). 

When I made my chox, I didn't use a pastry bag for piping it onto the baking sheet. I used a large plastic zip lock bag with one corner clipped off. When filling I did the same thing with the banana coconut cream, just used a smaller bag and a very small clip off the end.

As for the caramel, that stuff is deadly if you touch the pointy parts! Neither the hubby or myself are too fond of it, but I thought it would look prettier than the chocolate. I also added blackberries and slices of banana as decoration. 

All three of us loved this one, though when I make the choux pastry again, I'll be leaving the caramel off and use the chocolate instead! I have to say though despite getting burned by the caramel once, it was fun to use it as a glue and then to make the decorative top!