Praline Croquembouche

They say croquembouche are challenging and so I gave it another go. This is made of choux pastry puffs filled with almond praline crème patisserie made from vanilla crème patisserie and almond praline paste, dipped in and stuck together with caramel and decorated in spun sugar and flecks of gold leaf.

Let's just say, this was an interesting day. It seems either my choux pastry technique or recipe was floored. I ended up baking two batches, which was a waste of time seeing as the first yielded better puffs. They cracked and did not quite have the desired shape. I am putting it down to not cooking out the flour enough and poor piping as my attempt at more egg ended up with flatter choux than the first time! Other than that, the crème patisserie has a wonderful flavour and I am over the moon with how it came together in the end, ignoring the HUGE mess I ended up in, that is!