Has anybody ever transported an assembled croquembouche with the spun sugar web? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Not me, in fact never made one. I just wanted to wish you luck.

Mike

Don't even know what it is but would love to see a picture of one......love spun sugar.

I did.

we made them at school on a nougatine base , its in my photos.

I don't know if you are using a cake circle or a base of another kind. I just didn't attach the top piece of nougatine to the bottom , kinda like it was on a cake circle. Then I put it in a cake box , I wasn't able to cover the whole thing the box just kinda protected the bottom. It should be okay as long as they are attached with caramel sugar. The only real problem I had was that my spun caramel sugar threads started to weep because it was really humid that day.

sorry I can't be more helpful.

In cool and especially very cold weather they can be transported without issue (most of the time lol), but if it's very humid, you can have issues with the sugar, and especially the decorations not standing up to it.

Mike,
Thanks for the info. I have seen this before (now that you described it) just didn't know the name. Sounds way over my head.

Thank you! I'm making one for a French-themed bridal shower.

I'll make one and drive it to work for practice.

Maybe trasport it in two sections. Then just put the top part when you get to your destination.

I don't know if this helps, but my MIL had a croqeumbouche at a recent party (in the San Diego summer) and it was delivered whole. It was about 3 ft high. (and yummy!)

I made mine on a big foil-covered styrofoam cone. It worked beautifully, except it was a rainy day and my beautiful spun sugar web didn't quite make it to the venue. I made it 2' tall.

are you supposed to put them on a cone or stack them in a pyramid?

Or the presentation requirements vs number of servings required.

Traditionally they are built without any inner support, but it's not as simple as it looks lol. It's very easy to start going off center, or to have a side start to cave a little when you're first learning (I still have moments lol). I have a sheet I was given in school that helps you calculate the # of cream puffs per row in relation to the desired height and all that. But if this is your first ever croquembouche and you won't get to do a trial run, you may want to consider a cone for the interior.

I used to make them every week or so at my old job in the Pastry Dept. of a huge restaurant. It took me about 200-300 profiteroles to build the large ones for weddings. They were each piped inside with a lighter pastry cream cut with whipped cream, chilled, dunked in boiling caramel and built freehand...no cone or support system inside. We did them year-round, but as others have mentioned....humidity is a major enemy.

It was a LOT of work, incredibly messy and time consuming. We also only did them on-site and would never be able to move them via a car or van. They were just too fragile and tall, about 2.5 to 3 feet usually!

I did get really confident at them finally, but it took a long time to get the building and angling part down pat. (Caramel gets too cold, too hot, too dark, crystallizes, etc.) I built them like a brick wall, one profiterole fitting between the crack of the two profiteroles in the line beneath it.

My suggestion would be to make one that's only built of 100 or so profiteroles (and spun sugar if the weather allows) and just box up all the extra profiteroles with their light drizzling of caramel on each. That way, it's way WAY faster and easier for the venue to serve them without having to disassemble the real croquembouche first.

Transporting it? My vote is for the inner styrofoam cone too, just for stability.


Here are a few of my photos. Please excuse the weirdo look on my face in the first one. My co-worker and I were goofing around, haha! :

Bummer I can't see the pics.

Mike

Wow that 2nd pic is amazing...how is such a thing served?

They actually break it apart profiterole by profiterole with a tiny little hammer and a fork.

I used a cone for the one I made a few weeks ago - they didn't want spun sugar on it,just white choc. It was pretty easy to transport because it was ontop of a mud cake & I had a skewer going through it
Which doesn't really help you, does it ?!

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1260935.html

Thanks for the great tips everybody!!!

Just wanted to let you know I transported the croquembouche to the venue successfully. I decided to hold it and have somebody else drive!!!!

It's not a true "tower," my bridal shower was only 21 people. So I stacked it with no cone.

It tasted really GOOD.

I'll post the photo in my photos.