Nearly three years ago, Haley’s copy of Claire Saffitz’s Dessert Person arrived in the mail. She found herself wanting to taste nearly every recipe pictured and jokingly said, “I guess I’ll have to bake them all.” To her pleasant surprise, she learned through a few Instagram searches that there was a whole community of people doing just that. She scrolled through beautiful photos of tarte tropéziennes and sour cherry pies and set off to bake every recipe. “This was during the pandemic, and finding this community of like-minded bakers was a true source of joy and solace.”
When working through the book, she took her time and chose each recipe carefully based on the occasion or the season. “Oh! My mom would love this goat cheese cake,” she thought, or “It’s finally apple season, time for a tarte Tatin.” One by one her list got smaller. Now, as she flips through her worn and stained book, each recipe holds a memory of a time when she fed friends, family, neighbors or… perfect strangers. She celebrated Christmas 2021 with an aged fruitcake carefully coated in brandy for three months. She baked a coffee cake the weekend of a major snowstorm in Nashville that her husband still claims, two years later, is his favorite of all of her bakes, now lovingly referred to as Brett’s coffee cake.
Many months, virtual meetings, spreadsheets and Zoom calls later, Haley finally embarked on the last recipe in the book, the pièce de résistance: a croquembouche.
A croquembouche is a combination of the foundational recipes and techniques coming together to create one expert-level dessert. It is no small task but the payout is big. The simple ingredients—butter, sugar, flour, salt, milk, crème fraîche, vanilla—come together to create a swoon-worthy centerpiece that will have your guests, well, astounded you made it.