Croquembouche Tree

Directions

1. 1
   Custard cream: Take the ingredients marked with and mix them in a heat-resistant bowl, then add the egg yolks and mix it all together.
2. 2
   Mix in the milk little by little and microwave the mixture for 5 minutes.
3. 3
   Take it out of the microwave 3 times and stir it while it's microwaving.
4. 4
   Add the butter and vanilla essence and mix them in, then cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and chill it.
5. 5
   White cookie batter: Knead the shortening until it looks like mayonnaise, and then add the sugar and whisk it very well.
6. 6
   Add the egg whites and once they're mixed in (at this point, add as much vanilla essence as you like), sift in the cake flour and mix the dough until you're able to cut through it cleanly with a spatula.
7. 7
   Once it has balled together, put it in a clear plastic bag, roll it to about 3 mm.
8. 8
   thickness, and then put it in the fridge to chill for about 15 to 30 minutes.
9. 9
   Preheat the oven to 150C.
10. 10
    Cut the dough into a 21 cm.
11. 11
    diameter circle and cut the excess dough into shapes.
12. 12
    Cook the dough for 20 minutes and cool it on a cooling rack.
13. 13
    In order to bake the choux cream later, leave the oven on at 200C.
14. 14
    Choux batter making: Cut the butter into cubes and put them and the water into a small sauce pan and put it on low heat.
15. 15
    Turn the heat up once the butter has melted.
16. 16
    Once the mixture is boiling, turn off the heat, sift in the cake flour and mix it in briskly.
17. 17
    While heating it on low heat, mix the dough strongly until a thin film forms on the bottom of the saucepan.
18. 18
    If you're not sure what it looks like when it's ready, do your best to mix it for 4 minutes.
19. 19
    Take the pan off the heat and slowly add the beaten eggs in 4 or 5 increments and mix the batter well with each addition.
20. 20
    If you lift the batter on a spatula, the batter should take about 2 seconds to slowly slip off and should fall in a triangular shape as shown in the picture.
21. 21
    Put the batter in a piping bag and pipe it in 2-3 cm.
22. 22
    diameter balls onto a baking sheet.
23. 23
    Press down on the center of the balls with a very wet finger to even out the shape of the choux.
24. 24
    Bake the choux creams at 200C for 10 minutes, and then turn down the oven to 180C and bake them for another 10 minutes.
25. 25
    Let them dry out in the oven for another 10 minutes after turning off the heat before taking them out to cool.
26. 26
    Choux cream finishing touches Take the ingredients marked with and mix them until stiff peaks form.
27. 27
    Take the chilled custard cream and add it little by little while mixing it all together until it can cleanly be cut through with a spatula.
28. 28
    Put the cream in a piping bag and pipe it into the choux made in step nine.
29. 29
    Chocolate ganache Boil the heavy cream and milk in a small saucepan (or you can microwave it until it's boiling ).
30. 30
    Add the mixture to the bowl with the chopped up white chocolate and stir it briskly to melt the chocolate.
31. 31
    Construction of the tree: Coat the cookie base with ganache, and stack the choux creams in a round shape while covering the tops of them with ganache.
32. 32
    From the second layer to the top, continue coating the top of the choux creams with the ganache as you stack them.
33. 33
    Finally, top the tree with halved strawberries and star-shaped cookies, sticking them on them with ganache Put the finished tree in a cool place and let the ganache set.
34. 34
    Dust the tree with powdered sugar, add strawberry leaves and it's finished.