One of the most interesting cakes for special occasions is the French Croquembouche. The first time I saw one I wondered, "How on earth do you serve it?" Then I wondered, "How do you eat it?" and eventually I wondered, "How do you make it?" Now of course I wonder, "Where did it come from?" or rather, "Who cooked that up?"
Well, yes, it is French,
and credit for its creation usually goes to the great pastry
chef, Antoine Careme (1783-1833) 
who
dazzled Europe with spectacular structures made of spun sugar, marzipan,
nougatine and other sweet ingredients. The croquembouche, whose name
means "crunch in the mouth" is a rather simple version of his creations,
and its popularity has spread from France to other countries as a different
sort of celebration or wedding cake. Actually, Careme (sometimes
called "Antonin") is said to have constructed his cake in the form of a
Turkish Fez, rather than the conical shape we know, but he did make it
with cream puffs, which are the basis of the cake we call croquembouche.
The cream puffs themselves have an interesting history, going all the way back to 1547 when Catherine de Medici brought her chefs from Italy to France on the occasion of her marriage to the man who later became King Henry II. Her chef named Panterelli had a dough recipe which became known as pate a panterelli, or Panterelli's pastry. In the ensuing centuries the dough was changed and perfected until it finally became known as pate a choux (pastry for cabbages) because the puffs were thought to resemble little cabbages and were called choux buns and served with all kinds of fillings, both sweet and savory.
In 1760 a French pastry chef named Avice filled the buns with pastry cream and called them profiteroles, and these were the type of cream puffs that Careme used and perfected for his desserts later in that century.
The croquembouche has several steps and requires making first a pate a choux, then a pastry cream, then a caramel sauce before you can construct it and possibly add your own decorations. The following is a recipe for a dinner party dessert. To serve a large group you'd need to increase the ingredients, but I suggest you practise with this size first!
THE CROQUEMBOUCHE
(8 servings)
Part I. The dough (pate a choux)
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
8 Tablespoons butter
(1 stick)
1 cup flour
4 eggs
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line two cooky sheets with parchment paper.
Place water, sugar,
salt and butter in a saucepan and bring to a rolling boil. Remove
from heat and add flour all at once. Stir continuously with a wooden
spoon until dough comes away from the sides of the pan, forming a ball.
the dough should not be wet at this point. Remove from heat and place
dough in a bowl or mixer, using a wooden spoon or a paddle attachment.
Mix dough for a few minutes, allowing it to cool slightly.
Add a beaten egg and
mix dough until smooth. Repeat until all four eggs are used, scraping
down sides of the bowl. The dough should be pipable. To test
this, pinch off a bit of dough with your fingers and pull it apart.
It should hold a string.
Using a pastry bag
with a half inch wide plain tip pipe mounds of dough about 1 inch
high and 3/4 inch in diameter two inches apart on the parchment covered
cooky sheets.
Bake for 15 minutes
until golden and puffed. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for
another 10 minutes until they are dry and golden brown. Turn off
the oven but leave the puffs in the oven for another 10 minutes to dry
them still further. You may want to open one puff to check on the
interior -- it should be hollow and dry. Allow puffs to cool before
using them or placing them in a plastic bag to freeze for later use.
Part II. The pastry cream
2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
4 egg yolks
6 Tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
Place milk and half
the sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
Mix the egg yolks
and the rest of the sugar, then add the flour and cornstarch a little at
a time. Whisk a little of the milk into the yolk mixture.
With the milk mixture
boiling, add the yolk mixture, stirring rapidly and continuously for 3
to 5 minutes. Add vanilla and pour into a bowl, placing plastic wrap
directly on the cream to prevent a film from forming. Let cool at
room temperature, then place in the refrigerator.
Before preparing the caramel sauce, poke a hole with a plain tip in the bottom of each puff with a plain tip and pipe pastry cream into it.
III. The Caramel Sauce
4 1/2 cups granulated
sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 1/4 cups water
Note: Have on hand a large bowl filled with cold water. You will need this to cool the syrup. In case your hands accidentally touch the syrup, do not rub them; immediately dip them in the cool water.
Have ready a large cooky sheet covered with parchment paper and a round plate, piece of carboard or platter on which you will assemble the croquembouche.
Place the 1 1/4 cups of water and the sugar in a saucepan over high heat, brushing down the sides of the pan with a pastry brush to prevent crystals from forming. When it begins to boil add the corn syrup and insert a candy thermometer and cook until 320 degrees F is reached. Plunge the saucepan into the cold water for a minute or so to slow the cooking process. The sugar should now be an amber or golden caramel color.
Stick a fork into the end of a cream puff where the pastry was piped in and dip the puff into the caramel sauce, and place the puff on the parchment paper with the undipped side down. Working quickly, repeat with all the balls.
Reheat the caramel
sauce to the consistency of glue. Dip one side of a puff into the sauce
and stand it upright on the round plate, platter or cardboard, with the
sugar-covered side out. Working in a circle, using the syrup as glue,
attach each puff to the next one. Using a paring knife, fill in the
cracks with extra sugar "glue" until you have 10 puffs on the base layer.
The next layer will be about a half inch indented from the first layer
and have 8 puffs.
Then, indenting again,
there will be 6 puffs on the next layer, then 4 puffs, then 2 puffs and
finally one puff with the sugar side facing upwards.
Reheat the remaining syrup until it begins to darken. Let it cool until it will just barely drizzle from a fork. When it stops drizzling, place the fork on the croquembouche and pull the fork around the puffs, letting a thin thread spread over them. Repeat this process in order to decorate the cake with "angel hair."
Because I always try to offer a quick and easy version of the traditional recipe, I am happy to report to you that there is a way to cut short the croquembouche process. You can purchase frozen creampuffs and proceed directly to the caramel sauce and the assembly of the cake! Help with this operation is listed below among the Interesting Links.
As for serving the
cake -- it's traditional to use a small hammer. a bottle of champagne or
even a sword to break the cake apart, but I found using two forks to pry
three puffs loose from the cake will make about one serving of the dessert.
Eating it is no problem. Just eat one crunch-in-the-mouth puff after
another!