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Home » When I made croquembouche for a TV pilot

When I made croquembouche for a TV pilot

September 20, 2011 by Sarah / Maison Cupcake

Making Croquembouche

I am inspired by Helen’s post to revisit the day, some months ago now, when we made croquembouche in Katie’s kitchen.

Making Croquembouche

We were filming an episode for a new TV series, the premise of which was a group of friends baking something together who would then receive a masterclass from a celebrity baker how to do it “properly”.

Whereas being a contestant in the Great British Bake Off would require extensive travel and time commitments and be hideously competitive, filming a single episode of a friendly little baking show in London seemed a lot more laid back.

Making Croquembouche

Our theme was “celebration” and we opted for a croquembouche profiterole tower, often used as a wedding or christening cake in France. This required choux buns, creme patissiere and spun sugar. To top it off, we were decorating our masterpiece with home made fondant roses and chocolate macarons.

Making Croquembouche

Despite only being a single episode, the run up to filming was not without it’s stresses, not the baking, we had all that sussed, but the rescheduling and rescheduling each time requiring new childcare arrangements, husbands booking time off work, parents visiting to collect children at various times, dogs being looked after.

I was glad when it was out the way, no way would I manage to organise all this for 3-4 days at a time over six weeks.

Making buttercream in magimix

Sadly, for what I may best describe as “surprising” reasons, our episode landed on the cutting room floor and our masterclass with the celebrity never occurred.

We heard other episodes featured teams of people burning simple trays of biscuits so possibly we didn’t leave a huge amount of manoeuvre to be shown where we went wrong?

Actually, in the depths of winter, I was highly relieved not to have to travel across town at 6am for another day’s filming!

Making Croquembouche

Still, we proved that even with a film crew in the way we were perfectly capable of making a decent croquembouche.

The cameras were not really a problem, being filmed didn’t seem that big a deal. It was way more fun than being accosted by the pair off Masterchef.

The difficult part was to keep being asked to say what you’d just said again so that they could film it from a different angle.

So if you’re ever watching one of these shows and it comes across as unnatural and artificial, that’s the reason why!

Posh Pinnies Aprons

We were very fortunate to be given beautiful aprons by Posh Pinnies. (We organised this ourselves I should add, it was nothing to do with the production).

Making Croquembouche

Building the profiterole tower…. from this…

Making Croquembouche

…to this!

And there you have it…. four ladies and a croquembouche!

(Lady number four incase you are wondering is Helen’s lovely non-blogging friend Sophie)

Making Croquembouche Making Croquembouche Making Croquembouche Making Croquembouche

Filed Under: Journal Tagged With: eclairs & choux

About Sarah / Maison Cupcake

Sarah has published recipes on Maison Cupcake since 2009 and lives in London.
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Comments

  1. Janice says

    September 20, 2011 at 9:14 pm

    Well done to you all! Sounds like a fun day and a great croquembouche!

  2. Helen @ Fuss Free Flavours says

    September 20, 2011 at 9:20 pm

    It was a fun day. But how did they think they would squeeze all that into about 8 minutes?

  3. Simply.food says

    September 20, 2011 at 9:23 pm

    Wow sounds fun.

  4. Simply.food says

    September 20, 2011 at 9:24 pm

    This sound like a fun day.

  5. Nisha says

    September 20, 2011 at 10:21 pm

    that looks great…and i so so so heart tgbbb. I adore all 4 of them and i wish all of them did win 😉

  6. bernice says

    September 20, 2011 at 10:36 pm

    Was it the Eric Lanlard series, Baking Mad? Didn’t really ‘click’ with that show to be honest. He’s a bit weird and has awful teeth to boot! You had a lucky escape 😉 the profiteroles look devine.

  7. Kelly says

    September 21, 2011 at 8:57 am

    Shame they cut your episode as your croquembouche looks great. but shame on them for thinking 3-4 bloggers would make a disaster of a croquembouche and have Eric Landlard swoop in and “save the day” with a masterclass.

  8. Karen says

    September 21, 2011 at 12:42 pm

    Wonderful post and great photos ~ great looking croquembouches too.

  9. Chele says

    September 21, 2011 at 5:38 pm

    Impressive effort for sure and it sounds like fun too (in parts!)

  10. Abi says

    September 22, 2011 at 9:35 am

    I had a Croquembouche for my wedding many years ago. It was absolutely fabulous and gigantic.

    The most amusing part though? The look on the hotel staffs faces when they saw it, they had no idea how to cut it (it had a chocolate cake cone centre, surrounded by profiteroles, spun sugar and piped chocolate decorations). In the end my new husband abandoned me while he started to dismantle and serve it to our guests!

    Abi

  11. Gourmet Chicks says

    September 22, 2011 at 10:55 pm

    Love the posh pinnies and Sarah you look gorgeous in your pic – can’t wait to see the episode on tv!

  12. Mardi@eatlivetravelwrite says

    September 24, 2011 at 12:02 am

    This is absolutely awesome. Love you ladies! Wish I could watch you on TV – you would make great viewing!

    • Sarah, Maison Cupcake says

      September 28, 2011 at 12:12 pm

      We’re holding out for our own show!

  13. Choclette says

    September 25, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    And how beautiful is that? I’ll answer my own question – it’s brilliant. Sorry you didn’t get to feature it – I’m sure it would have upped the viewing figures.

    • Sarah, Maison Cupcake says

      September 28, 2011 at 12:12 pm

      Well quite, we like to think that they wasted what would have been one of the best episodes of the series. Oh well, barely anyone would have seen it in the day anyway…

  14. Sally - My Custard Pie says

    September 25, 2011 at 5:47 pm

    Love, love, love the posh pinnies and you all bustling around that kitchen. I bet you and Helen had everything super-organised. Beautiful crocs too.

    • Sarah, Maison Cupcake says

      September 28, 2011 at 12:11 pm

      Yep, Helly was pretty much in charge!

  15. Su-yin says

    October 1, 2011 at 11:16 pm

    Oh that’s such a shame that it didn’t come to anything – did you get any of the outtakes/video that they took? Would be fun for you four to look back on in a few years! 😉

  16. Jeanne @ CookSister! says

    October 7, 2011 at 3:02 pm

    Hah – 2″surprising reasons”? Maybe something we need to discuss over a bottle of wine!! Next time you clearly need to make a specatcular hash of some aspect of the process to get on TV… Still, it looks as if the 4 of you have a fab day and the end result looks delicious!

About Sarah / Maison Cupcake

Sarah has published recipes on Maison Cupcake since 2009 and lives in London.
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