When bored: make a Croquembouche!

If you've ever watched any of the finals of MasterChef NZ you'll have probably seen or heard of the dreaded croquembouche. It's touted as being a rather difficult challenge, and not something you'd want to do on a whim. So against our better judgement, my sister and law and I did exactly that. One day we randomly decided we'd give it a go using the original MasterChef NZ recipe. Thankfully the dreaded croquembouche was actually achievable, and we didn't have any disasters. If you have a bit of common sense, patience, and can follow a recipe, you'll be sweet! The only problem was, it does take time and to be honest, the taste was nothing mind-blowing. I don't know why but I expected more. Sure it was yum, but if I was to do it again I'd probably want to try a different filling. The vanilla custard was nice, but it was nothing special. And I think for a dessert of this calibre, it warrants something with a bit more zing. Or perhaps I'd make a couple of different fillings, for variety. Anywho I just wanted to make this quick post to share the knowledge that if I can do it, then so can you. If you've ever been curious to make one, don't be intimidated, just do it!

Here's a link to the recipe that we used:
Masterchef NZ - Croquembouche

TIPS: we halved the recipe so it was easy to create a smaller stable tower, it will still serve a lot of people (approx 10). We also skipped making the caramel base. And of course we didn't have a cone to form it in (who has one of those lying around?) so just create free-form towered stack. It's going to be a homemade job, so don't worry about trying to make it perfect. Just play around with their positioning before you dip the balls into the caramel.