Cream Puff Tower Cake

This cake may look complicated, but it's surprisingly easy, and it's definitely a show stopper. The cake is a vanilla chiffon sponge, very light and airy, filled with a light vanilla buttercream, soaked with orange curacao, and topped with caramel sauce. The cream puffs are then 'glued' with caramel, giving the puffs a crunch, more caramel sauce is poured over the tower, it is then decorated with berries and dusted with powdered sugar. This cake is sure to please. The combination of the soft sponge cake eaten with the crunchy cream puffs is really delicious.

First make the chiffon sponge:

In a mixer put:
240g oil
12 yolks
30g vanilla paste
600g sugar

whisk till light in color and fluffy.

Now sift:
24g baking powder
8g salt
600g cake flour and add them on low till combined.

In a separate mixer whisk the whites till they are at medium peaks and add them to the batter in 3 batches, folding them in until you can't see any egg white ribbons.
Grease 2 10" cake pans, line the bottom with parchment circles, and bake for about 45 minutes at 350F.
Test with a skewer, they must be done all the way or the middle will sink.
Cool and cut in half. Soak with orange curacao.

Vanilla buttercream:

In a saucepan put:
3C sugar
1C water and make sure the sugar is covered
1/4C corn syrup to help prevent crystallizing of the sugar
Put on a stove top, let it bubble away until the sugar has reached 240F.

In the mean time in a mixer on high add:
6 whole eggs, whisk till light in color and thicker. When the syrup is at 238F pour it slowly into the eggs as they are mixing on high until all the syrup is in there. Continue mixing on high until the bowl is not hot anymore, then start adding 2.5lbs of soft butter cut in small chunks, add them gradually until each chunk has been mixed in. The whole thing will thicken and will come together. Add vanilla extract at the end, about 3T. Put it in a piping bag and use this as the cake filling, and to decorate around the edges of the cake.

Cream puffs:

In a saucepan put:
335g water
148g butter
23g sugar
5g salt

Bring to a boil then with a wooden spoon stir in:

220g flour

stir vigorously until it is a ball about 1-2 minutes,
put this into a mixing bowl with a paddle attachment, start it on medium high, until it is not steaming anymore, reduce to medium and start adding 6 whole eggs, one at a time until each one has been combined.
Put the batter in to a piping bag, and on a lined sheet tray pipe little 1" balls. 1/2" apart. Chill them, then egg wash them, then bake at 350F for 20 minutes. You can choose to fill them with whipped cream when cool, or leave them plain.

Caramel sauce:

In a saucepan put:
150g corn syrup
400g sugar
1 vanilla bean sliced open
cover with 1/2C water and bring to a boil until it has reached a medium amber color;
pour in slowly 2C heavy cream and let it all dissolve and boil again, then add 1/2 stick of butter at the end, stir well. Cool. Put a layer of this on top of the cake, and build the cream puff tower on top of this.

Caramel:

In a saucepan add:
2C sugar
cover with 1/2C of water, make sure there is no sugar on the edges of the pot and the water is covering it nicely. Boil for about 15-20 minutes until it has reached a light amber color. Take it of the heat, and make sure your hands are covered with 2 layers of rubber gloves. This will be very hot. Take each cream puff, one at a time and dip it into the caramel, then place it on the cake, one at a time, but do it fast creating a tower as the caramel hardens quickly, but this is basically the glue.

To finish it off pour some more caramel sauce over the top of the tower, dust it with powdered sugar, and build berries in between the cream puffs, and the bottom of the cake to complete the look.