Pies and croque-en-bouche

Buzzfeed's food testing guys, Steven Lim and Andrew Ilnyskyj drive to Pie Hole and try an upscale apple pie with a crumble top and a tea-flavored foam pie, then they drive over to their collaborator's house, sometimes Japanese interpreter, Rie Tange McClenny who shows them how to make a croque-en-bouche. A Russian-roulette style with some of the cream puffs filled with wasabi. This video is the second of a three part holiday series.

Croque-en-bouche means "crunch in mouth," compressed to "croquembouche." Sometimes they're made with the caramel cooked to higher candy temperature and pulled with a fork to form glass-like filaments placed over the surface of the tree as icicles, but that's fancy.

It's not so difficult. I taught three girls how to make pâte à chou puff balls here at my apartment for one of Deena's parties, and they started out knowing nothing. Nothing. No. Thing. And they all came out rather nice with very little trouble if you discount not using a Silpat mat for the baking sheet, or preparing one with oil spray. Aside from that little oversight.

I know you're thinking Buzzfeed is too douche-y a place for anything worthwhile, but I think these three people are exceptions. At any rate, they're good ideas for things a little bit different.