I like my cakes to look pretty, I want them to look stylish – they should look as good as they taste. These petit fours are a beautiful change to my everyday bake. Its French style food; Petit Fours means “Small Oven”. Actually a wide variety of sweet and savoury goodies can be made in small size. They will be called Petit Fours.
Petit-Fours-French-Patisserie
Petit Fours are very fancy and delicately layered bite sized cakes. They make for a good plate to set before guests. They are easy to serve and beautiful enough to entice another piece. There is a wonderful almond aroma in every bite. These are very different from all the other cakes you have ever made.
Petit-Fours-French-Patisserie
The recipe has almond paste (marzipan). – it’s a combination of blanched almonds and sugar mixed with egg white or glucose. If you don’t find ready to use almond paste you can make your own. Dip the almonds overnight, take the peels off and pat them dry. Using a food processor, ground the almonds. Beat the egg white in the food processor then add in the sugar and ground almond. You can also use almond extracts to enhance the flavor. A spoonful of rose-water will add in a lot of depth to the flavor. The quantities are – 1 and 1/2 cup of almond flour + 1 and 1/2 cup of powder sugar + One egg white. Remember it has a pliable yet grainy texture with a sweet almond flavor.
Petit-Fours-French-Patisserie
The Cake is baked in a swiss roll baking tray – then cut into three equal parts. Please use a long scale to measure and have proper cuts. This will form the entire look later. There is very thin layer of raspberry preserve between the layers. You can use any jam or preserves at home. Apricot works wonderful with these flavors.
Then comes the icing part; ufffff. The hardest part, actually it could have been easy if I were not on my experimental frame of mind. One way to dress your cakes is roll out some fondant and cover neatly. Stick some flowers and decors. The other way is to melt some fondant in the microwave and add some hot sugar-water into it and mix well. This will give you the fondant with a pouring consistency. It looks beautiful while working. If you wish to glaze your petit fours, arrange the cut shapes on a cooling rack set over a rimmed baking sheet. Pour the warm glaze over and around the sides of each cake. Any extra glaze can be scraped off the baking sheet, reheated, and re-applied.
You can simply melt some chocolate and dip your petit fours into and then decorate it with what ever; of course edible. Now writing this I am getting another idea – you can pour some marshmallow fondant as icing over the petit fours. I think it will not only look great but will also taste great. If you have not read my Home made marshmallow recipe I am giving a link here. Marshmallows.
