Croquembouche
·Make the dough
Bring salted water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the butter and let it melt. Stirring constantly, add all the flour at once. Keep stirring vigorously over low heat for about 2 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and let it cool slightly.
Add the eggs
Then gradually beat in the eggs, one at a time, stirring constantly. It's best to use a hand-held electric mixer with whisk attachments.
Pipe onto the baking sheet
Transfer the dough into a piping bag and pipe small mounds, about the size of a walnut, onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. If you'd rather not bother with a piping bag and washing up all the nozzles, you can simply spoon the dough onto the sheet with a teaspoon.
Bake
Bake for 12–15 minutes in an electric oven preheated to 200°C. Once the puffs have cooled, fill them with vanilla custard cream (for the less fussy among us) – more dedicated bakers can make their own crème pâtissière (egg yolk custard) – but that's a story for another time.
Make the cream
Cook the listed ingredients into a custard, let it cool, then beat it together with the butter.
Fill the puffs
There's no getting around using a piping bag for filling the puffs. Fill the bag with the cream, poke a hole in the bottom of each puff with the piping tip, and fill.
Tip: decorating
Traditionally, this dessert is draped in a veil of spun caramel threads. That was the one thing I didn't quite manage! Instead, I thought of tucking chocolate-dipped strawberries between the puffs – white and dark chocolate, or caramel – plus maybe a few flowers.