For The Caramel:

1. Place water, butter, salt, and sugar in saucepan and bring to the boil. When butter has melted and water is bubbling, remove saucepan from heat; immediately pour in all the flour and beat with a wooden spoon to blend thoroughly. Set over moderate heat and beat with wooden spoon for a minute or two until mixture leaves sides of pan clean, leaves spoon clean, and begins to film on the bottom of the pan; this is to evaporate all excess moisture.

2. Make a depression in the center of the hot panade with your spoon, break an egg into it, and beat thoroughly until the egg is absorbed.

3. Continue with four more eggs one at a time, and beating in each until thoroughly absorbed.

Whether or not to add all or part of the sixth egg depends on the consistency of the pastry; if it is too soft, it will spread out when formed. Test by lifting up a mass of the paste in your spoon; it should hold its shape. If it seems too stiff beat the sixth egg in a small bowl, then beat a tablespoon into the pastry; test again, adding more egg, if you think it necessary.

4. Forming the Puffs:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

With a soup spoon or with a pastry bag fitted with 1/2 inch tube, form circular blobs of pate a choux 1 inch in diameter and 1 inch high, spaced 1.5 inches apart on the sheets. With the leftover pastry make a decoration for the top of the croquembouche, such a a 4x2.5 inch oval 1/4 inch thick, continuing one end of the oval into a 2 inch stem. (You may have to put this on a separate sheet and bake it later.)

Paint the tops of the puffs with egg glaze, pushing them into shape if necessary with the flat of your brush. BE CAREFUL NOT TO LET GLAZE DRIBBLE DOWN THE SIDES OF THE PUFFS ONTO THE BAKING SHEET; THIS WILL PREVENT PUFFS FROM RISING.

5. BAKING: Place the filled baking sheets in the upper and lower-middle levels of the preheated oven and bake for about 20 minutes; or until puffs are a nice golden brown and crisp to the touch; they should double in size. Turn oven down to 350 degrees F and bake 10 minutes more, then turn oven off, leave door ajar, and let puffs cool. They must be thoroughly dried out and crisp for the croquembouche. (Baked and cooled puffs may be frozen.)

6. FILLING SUGGESTIONS:

If you wish to mount the croquembouche hours ahead of time it is best to use unfilled puffs; filled puffs may become soggy in 2 - 4 hours.

As you can easily transform pate a choux into a pastry-cream filling, you could make a little extra pate a choux to begin with, by adding to the original proportions:

Pastry Cream:

When you have finished forming your 70 puffs and the decoration, beat the extra pastry with 2-3 T of milk in a heavy saucepan over moderate heat. When the mixture is simmering, thin out to desired consistency with dribbles of milk, and sweeten to taste with several tablespoons of sugar. Flavor to taste with vanilla and kirsch, rum, of coffee. The easiest way to fill the puffs is with a pastry bag and a .25 inch tube, plunged into the bottom or sides of the puffs.

7. MOUNTING THE CROQUEMBOUCHE:

When ready to assemble, find any type of slant-sided container that is about 8 inches at the top, 7 inches at the bottom, and 4 or more inches deep ( a flowerpot lined with heavy aluminum foil would do.). Smear the entire interior with canola or vegetable oil You will line this container with caramel-dipped puffs to form the base of the croquembouche; because the container is oiled, you can slip the base out of it.

8. THE CARAMEL:
In a heavy bottom 2 quart pot. Pour in water, to this add the sugar. Place over a medium flame, and stir constantly till the sugar is totally dissolved and the liquid is ready to come to boil. Add corn syrup.

STOP stirring, and raise the flame to high. Wash down the sides of the pot with water and a brush. Allow the sugar to take on an amber color. This takes about 10-15 minutes.

When it reaches the right color, remove pot from the heat and plunge the bottom of the pot into ice water - hold for about 5 seconds. This stops the cooking process!

Now be patient, you must allow the sugar to cool slightly and begin to thicken. This takes about 5-10 minutes. Slowly stir with a fork, to assure the sugar cools evenly.

If the sugar begins to thicken, rewarm in the microwave until liquid again, this way the color will not change. If you reheat over the stove, the sugar will change colors and will not match the previous dipped cream puffs!

9. BUILDING:

Spearing puffs with a small knife, dip them one by one into the caramel and make a ring of upside-down puffs around the inside of the container, being sure each puff is glued to its neighbor with caramel. The sugar should stay on the crown of the puff and not run much. If it does not, the sugar is still to hot and runny.

Build another ring on top of the first, and continue until the sides of the mold are covered. Let cool 5 minutes, then run a thin knife between puffs and edge of container to loosen the base; unmold onto a upturned cake tin. Build four or more rows of right-side-up caramel dipped puffs on top of the base; slanting each row slightly inward to make a conical shape. Dip stem of decoration into caramel and set into the center of the top row.

10. FINAL DECORATION:

Dip a spoon into the caramel and dribble lines over the entire croquembouche, then dip a fork into the caramel and wave it around and around the croquembouche to surround it with threads of spun caramel. Set on a serving platter. You can also stick on decorative elements with the caramel in the crevices, like candied violets, gold balls, gum paste flowers, sugar covered almonds, etc.

From Gourmet Magazine, December, 1994:

Assemble croquembouche:
Line a tray with wax paper. Working quickly with 1 cream puff at a time, impale bottom of each puff on tip of a small serrated knife and carefully dip top in caramel, leaving bottom 1/3 inch uncoated (to facilitate handling) and letting excess drip off. (Be extremely careful when working with hot caramel.) Set puff, coated side up, on prepared tray. When all puffs are coated, center 3, touching to form a triangle, on a cake-decorating turntable. Form a ring of 9 puffs around triangle and, working with 1 of the 9 puffs at a time, carefully dip 1 edge into caramel, letting excess drip off, and affix puffs to one another in a tight ring around first 3 puffs. Dip bottom of a puff in caramel and center it over middle of first 3 puffs. Working with 1 puff at a time, carefully dip 1 edge of each puff into caramel, letting excess drip off, and build a second, slightly smaller ring on top of the first using 8 puffs (if necessary adding an additional puff in center to stabilize ring), making sure each puff is glued with caramel to the one before it.

Build on top of first 2 rows 4 more rings of 5 puffs each in same manner, always building from inside out with an additional puff in center as support.

For top of croquembouche build 1 layer of 3 puffs and top with 1 puff. Let caramel harden 5 minutes and loosen croquembouche from turntable with a spatula. Transfer croquembouche with hands to a platter.

Slip 5-inch-wide bands of wax paper under edges of croquembouche to protect from caramel drips. Remove caramel from heat and cool to thickness of molasses, 2 to 3 minutes. Dip tip of a small spoon in caramel and drizzle caramel decoratively over croquembouche. (Alternately, all puffs may be dipped in initial caramel and put in a shallow serving bowl without being molded into a cone shape.) Let caramel harden and remove wax paper. croquembouche is best served as soon as possible but may be made up to 12 hours ahead and chilled but not covered.

To serve croquembouche, lightly shatter caramel cage with back of a knife and dismantle, 1 puff at a time.