Laura Vincent’s previous Crush Cakes can be found here.
Welcome back to Crush Cakes. When you sit around breathlessly swooning over your crushes nonstop like me, well…we are worldly people here, you know what happens next. I make cakes expressing my feelings for them, and then sit back and wait for my destiny to be fulfilled. It all makes perfect sense.
Look at this perfect woman. However, in the words of Carly Rae Jepsen, it’s hard to look right at you, baby.
My love is vast, like a mountain of profiteroles.
This crush cake is dedicated to the ultimate queen of my fervent little heart, Lucy Liu. I should warn you, the first part of this post is drawn from many, many text conversations back and forth between myself and Kate, one of my best friends who feels similarly about Ms Liu. The second part of this is drawn from actual facts about Lucy Liu, mostly to calm myself down but also to not make this too weird (she says, not caring at all how weird it is).
Imagine Lucy Liu living in a secluded, rough-hewn yet subtly palacious and bug-free log cabin in a forest. Imagine Lucy Liu as a woodcutrix, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans and boots, lounging upon a tree stump. Imagine Lucy Liu having a room where she does her art, and a room where you get to do your own creative thing while Lucy Liu nurtures your artistic side and encourages your efforts. Imagine Lucy Liu gathering herbs from her garden and making you a simple rustic broth for dinner before we all sit together on the floor and drink whisky. Imagine Lucy Liu astride a horse, galloping into the wind; imagine Lucy Liu rescuing you from a river while at least one of you is wearing a garland of flowers in your hair; imagine Lucy Liu needing your help and you discovering that the power was inside you all along; imagine discussing feminist icons and listening to Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj with Lucy Liu; imagine Lucy Liu tattooing both of us at the same time because she’s ambidextrous; imagine watching Lucy Liu paint; imagine Lucy Liu just, like, with her hair in a ponytail.
For real, though, Lucy Liu is a prolific artist, a fearsomely good actor, a philanthropist, a staggeringly beautiful yet stupidly adorable person, and – as I’ve been presented no decent evidence to the contrary – a literal goddess. She was perfect as she rose to fame in Ally McBeal; she made the concept of perfection look like garbage as she transcended it in Charlie’s Angels and Kill Bill; and she is currently being ridiculously swell as Joan Watson in Elementary.
And now, a recipe for one of the more difficult cakes I’ve had to make. I thought, what could possibly represent my love for Lucy Liu? What could be worthy of her? A life-sized ice-cream castle? A cake made of pure gold that I excavated myself under the full moon? In the end I went for something mountainous and labor-intensive, but don’t feel like you have to stick to my structure – you can just throw all the profiteroles onto a plate and serve the caramel sauce on the side.
Profiterole Mountain with Maple Caramel Sauce to Express My Crush On Lucy Liu
200g butter
3 cups water
pinch of salt
4 cups flour
4 eggs
100g butter
½ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
¾ cup cream
pinch salt
1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with a tablespoon of water
Set your oven to 200 C/ 400 F.
Bring the butter and water to a boil in a good-sized pan. As soon as it comes to a boil, remove it from the heat and dump in the flour. Stir vigorously until it comes together in a ball that pulls away from the side of the pan. Allow it to cool slightly, and then beat in the eggs – this will take a while and it will be a ridiculous mess, but it will eventually come together into a soft, smooth batter.
Use two small spoons to transfer small balls of dough (roughly the size of a walnut) onto a baking-paper-lined tray. Bake for fifteen minutes, or until puffed and golden. As you remove them from the oven, use a toothpick, fork, or skewer to pierce a hole in them so the steam can escape, and allow to cool on a rack while you continue baking the rest of the dough in batches.
Once all of the dough is baked, arrange the puffs into a mountainous shape – or whatever kind of shape you like, really, however beautiful or mundane it may be.
To make the sauce, melt the butter, sugar, syrup, and salt together till bubbling, then pour in the cream and the cornstarch and continue to stir over low heat till the sauce is somewhat thickened. Remove from the heat and stir in the cinnamon. Once it has cooled a little, spoon and pour lavishly over the puffs, then dust with more cinnamon and a little grated white chocolate if you like. Serve tearfully.
Excuse me, I have to run to a secluded meadow and scream.
You should know that while these take some work, they are completely rewarding – the puffy little profiteroles soak up the caramel sauce and become splendidly chewy and sugary. The sauce itself is casually addictive, the smoky warmth of maple syrup and dusting of cinnamon making it all rather special in a mysterious kind of way.
And so, let us end with some quiet, solemn meditation upon how wonderful Lucy Liu is. Remember, when you walked along the beach and looked back and saw only one set of footprints, it’s because Lucy Liu was carrying you. (If you looked back and saw two sets of footprints, it’s because Lucy Liu was carrying Jesus, but being way chill about it.)
A croquembouche! I have made these before, after seeing Martha Stewart make one on a 1993 Christmas special that my mother had videotaped.
I like your method of pouring the glaze/sauce over the mountain instead of spinning sugar around it. The spun sugar method is laborious and often painful (hot sugar burns are the worst; how can something I love so much hurt me so badly?!). Goddamn showoff Martha Stewart.
And Lucy Liu. *swooning sigh*
My reaction to most episodes is ‘JOAN WATSOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!!’
This exactly. Her WARDROBE in that show. Chunky knits and fur and epic wool collars! Diaphanous blouses and beautifully structured skirts! THE SHOES. THE MASSIVE YET STYLISH COATS.
Sa-woon.
I was never in my life a person who cared about fashion, and then I saw Lucy Liu’s wardrobe in Sherlock, and now I have an icon.
I may have purchased a tunic dress this past week fully with the intention of Being More Like Joan Watson.
Eponysterical AND perfect because Fry *is* in love with Lucy Liu!
Oh god, Lucy Liu. You know, I could hold it together if it weren’t for her freckles. The freckles KILL me.
Aw man, I had SOMEHOW FORGOTTEN about her freckles throughout the entire reading of this article. *swoons with renewed fervor*
Lucy Liu is the person who made me realize I miiiiiiight not be as hetero as I thought I was. Just maybe. Like, a skosh. One profiterole’s worth of Into Ladies.
Me too! I wonder how many of us she has Turned.
lol me too
THIS POST IS MORE PERFECT THAN MY FRAGILE HUMAN MIND POSSESSES THE CAPACITY TO COMPREHEND.
(If you looked back and saw two sets of footprints, it’s because Lucy Liu was carrying Jesus, but being way chill about it.)
Imagine Lucy Liu and you are walking together down a gorgeous beach in the golden late-afternoon light, talking about everything and nothing, just enjoying each other’s company, and then fucking Jesus Christ shows up and wants to hang out but won’t even WALK and Lucy Liu doesn’t hesitate for one single beat, she shrugs like sure, no problem bro, and fucking picks Jesus up???? and then casually carries him around for the rest of your walk without even making a big deal about it, like this shit happens to her every fucking day.
“Oh, Jesus? That’s nothing. Buddha was by the other day, and that guy is a bit, well, huskier than this one,” she said nonchalantly, adjusting Jesus Christ into a more comfortable piggyback ride.
omg YES. Last week an entire hunting party of Greek goddesses showed up, which was chill. Single deities are nothing. (Lucy Liu brushes an invisible speck of dust off her impeccably-clad shoulder.)
New Crush Cakes!!!!
Oh my god, is she wolfing a calzone in that one pic? *fans self
I saw a funnel cake at first, and really, am just fine either way.
I thought it was pizza! But regardless, I agree. Lucy Liu eating a food off a paper plate on a bench in a huge floofy ball gown is the BEST. It could not be a better picture.
I’m very sure it’s pizza! And even if it’s not I’m choosing to believe it is, because LL + magnificent ballgown + pizza is, well, why I wrote that caption for that photo.
Yeah, dang, I’m not sure I’m ever going to forgive that dumb fighting movie with Antonio Banderas for making me think I didn’t like Lucy Liu.
I love this post a lot.
welp, better get on watching Elementary and making some profiteroles, this is perfect.
woodcutrix
gorgeous
I GUESS I NEVER THOUGHT OF LUCY LIU AS ANYTHING BUT PERFECTLY COSMOPOLITAN AND ELEGANT BUT NOW YOU HAVE INTRODUCED THIS IDEA OF RUSTIC LUCY LIU INTO MY HEART AND I’M OVEREXCITED LIKE A PUPPY. LIKE, I’M A LITTLE AFRAID OF HOW EXCITED I AM AND I DON’T WANT TO PEE ON THE FLOOR.
You forgot her turn on Southland. That was a good show; and then Lucy came on it and for a brief moment she elevated it to ‘great’ status; and then she moved to something else and it became just good again. *clutches photo of Lucy to chest and squeals like the fangirl she is*
So um how do you eat a crouqembouche? Like etiquette-wise. Do your just like what scoop half a dozen off the top with a serving spoon or is it polite to go one puff at a time.
And for the ridiculously dressed French ones do you take everything off first or just sort of as it comes up.
According to Masterchef (they had to make crouqembouche for one of the pressure tests), you should be able to pluck one off with your fingers.
So um how do you eat a crouqembouche? Like etiquette-wise. Do your just like what scoop half a dozen off the top with a serving spoon or is it polite to go one puff at a time.
And for the ridiculously dressed French ones do you take everything off first or just sort of as it comes up.
Good question. Whatever etiquette there is involved with them, I probably flouted it by just sitting on the balcony of my apartment cross-legged eating them with my fingers one by one till I was full/quite covered in caramel sauce.