Oh look, another glorious morning. Makes me SICK! Anyway… Everyone knows that spending hours mending together the perfect halloween costume is made worth it once you get to a good party that has tables full of sweet treats to enjoy.
SISTAHSSS! Prepare thyselves. —
Halloween Croquembouche {Cream puffs filled with vanilla bean pastry cream, spun together with caramelized sugar in a sweet, tasty spider’s nest.}
The base of the creepy croquembouche is the stack of cream puffs. We’ve covered how to make the perfect puffs before in our Cream Puffs post, and this will be no different. Pâte à choux, a pastry base that sounds much more complicated than it really is, is behind these simply delicious treats. Ready in minutes and a very forgiving recipe. The out that post for a bit more background on the process if you want to brush up. Yes. It looks gross. Perfect, right?!
Just a bit of a little kitchen tip– Filling the pastry bag is soooo much easier if you plop it into a glass. The more you know!
The jet black coloring ended up being the most perfect shade of Halloween dark purple. You know the one. That misty, fog-filled sky behind the headless horseman. That one. This was a result of the coloring with the bit of yellow from the yolks in the base.
A quick egg wash and tap on the point evens things out to give the puffs that plump egg shape after baking. I tried baking these on both a baking mat and parchment paper. Both seemed to work just fine.
Out of the cauldron, and these look perfect for our spooky stack. Remember, this is Halloween. This is the time to make all of your baking fouls and have it viewed as being even better than expected! Plop stuff sideways, don’t hide the crack in the cake, spill the sugar everywhere. Amok, amok, amok!
Do. You. See. This?! Talk about the best spider nest you’ll ever consume, right? (Let’s hope.) A classic vanilla bean pastry cream with a single drop of black coloring makes for the perfect spider spawn innards. (Yes. I found that to sound exactly as disgusting as you just did.)
You could add a bit of the Spun Sugar Spider Web to finish this tower of terror. Dammit, Janet! This treat is guaranteed to be just the devilishly delicious centerpiece that your monster bash needs.
Happy Halloween! Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!
- ½ cup water
- 4 tablespoons butter, unsalted
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup flour, all-purpose
- 2 eggs
- jet black gel food coloring
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon milk
- 1 and ½ cup milk (whole is best)
- ⅓ cup sugar, split in half
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- 4 eggs, yolks only
- 3 tablespoon flour
- 3 tablespoons butter
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Use sugar recipe from HERE.
- Preheat oven to 400 F.
- In saucepan-- add water, butter, sugar, salt.
- Cook over medium heat to boil.
- Dump in flour all at once. Stir rapidly.
- Keep stirring until together and incorporated well.
- Remove pan and continue to stir for a couple minutes.
- Mix in eggs, one at a time, stirring very well between each to fully incorporated and smooth.
- Mix in black coloring until desired color is reached.
- Place in pastry bag to pipe.
- Pipe about 1 inch wide rounds onto paper-lined or mat topped baking sheet.
- Combine egg wash ingredients. Brush on wash, press down the tips with an egg wash dipped finger.
- Bake for 20 minutes. Remove and cool completely.
- In saucepan, heat milk, one half of the sugar, vanilla over medium heat.
- In a mixer bowl, combine the other half of the sugar with the egg yolks.
- Mix medium speed until pale yellow and thickened.
- Add salt and flour. Mix well.
- Slowly pour half of barely boiling milk mixture into the egg mixture while mixing on low speed.
- Add the egg mixture to the pan with the rest of the hot milk. Whisk constantly until thickened.
- Bring to boil an whisk until thick. Add butter and combine well.
- Remove from heat. Chill in refrigerator.
- Fill puffs with cream using pastry bag with open tip (#4 Ateco works best).
- Cook sugar per recipe instructions HERE.
- Use a cone to build around, if desired. Halloween decorations can be messy!
- Cook sugar to desired temp and remove from heat to cool slightly.
- CAREFULLY dip the puff sides in sugar and build around silicone or non-stick lined cone.
- When cooled, you can optionally remove cone carefully from interior.
- Surround with Spun Sugar Spider Web for extra oooo and ahhhhs.
- Decorate with spiders and powdered sugar.
- Enjoy these deliciously devious sweets with friends!
- Visit SouthernFATTY.com for more.
This recipe idea was borrowed (read: stolen) from a conversation between myself and Brett of Fig+Bleu on the subject of Halloween fare. Be sure to give him a visit and say hello!
We’d love to see what y’all are doing for Halloween. Yell at us in your Instagram and Facebook photos so we can see! Check out our Instagram for our shares.
Oh my that is evil genius 🙂
Thanks! 🙂
And a nice Rocky Horror reference thrown in for good measure!
Glad someone got that 🙂
spiders don’t make “nests”
A spider nest generally (or at least in this Halloween-oriented post) refers to a cumulative group of egg sacs. The egg sac silk is a unique silk produced by a spider’s cylindriform gland. While not all spiders enclose eggs like this, most female species actually do. Cheiracanthium spp. would be a good example. Cheers! (Randomness curse of being a biologist…)
You are so stinkin’ creative! This is awesome (and delicious)!
It was tasty! 🙂
I wish I was this clever. WOW! Happy Halloween. (I’ve had the normal croquembouche on my bucket list to make for years). But nothing tops this one.
It’s sooo easy! And, I mean, tastes amazing. Even in black 🙂
Hilarious post! You’ve officially just made croquembouche appropriate for every holiday.
I’ll drink to that! 🙂