By Home cook, Sharmini Jayawardena
This is a most demanding of edible morsels I’ve ever encountered making 😳
To take you through the preparation involved in making petit four, in a few steps to begin with are as follows:
- Make a Pound Cake in a large baking tray with out adding baking powder, so that the cake does not rise. The idea is to make three tiers of cake that amounts to 1” to 1 1/2”!
With one Pound Cake (of which recipe is given below), I was able to make 17 petits fours of 1” x 1” x 1 1/2” each, after counting out the off cuts from trimming the layered cake. You can save the off cuts to be eaten as a snack.
Or follow this ⬇️ recipe which involves adding almond paste. Adding almond paste to the recipe would improve the flavor greatly.
2. Once the cake is cooled, cut the cake into three equal parts. Spread a strained apricot preserve and layer with one part of the cake and then the other with raspberry preserve. So now you have a three tired cake. (I used raspberry jam and pineapple jam to make three layers, which I later found to be too runny). You can mix some Grand Marnier and Cherry Liqueur, to the preserves if you like. After having done all of this, wrap it well in aluminum foil and freeze it.
3. I kept the cake in the freezer for a really long time. Ideally, you transfer the cake from the freezer to the refrigerator the following day to thaw it.
4. Take the cake out of the refrigerator before the cake becomes too soft and apply a not too thin layer of frosting on the top. I made a icing sugar, almond paste and butter frosting. I added a very little of red food colour to get a light pink coloured frosting.
5. At this stage, trim the cake along the edges to make a perfectly rectangular cake. Take a foot ruler and draw the lines length wise and crosswise, (1″x1″), to mark the size of the petits fours. Place the cake once again in the refrigerator.
6. Now start making the poured fondant. Here is the recipe I followed:
7. Take the cake out of the refrigerator and cut 1” x 1” pieces of cake. Place a wire rack on a really big bowl so as to collect the drippings of the excess poured fondant.
8. Place each piece of cake on the wire rack well spaced out but within the perimeters of the bowl.
9. Spoon the poured fondant on to each piece, making sure all sides of each piece is covered with the glaze. Let it set a while and place each piece in a paper cake cup.
10. Decorate like I did with an almond flake or any other like disco dust, edible gold leaf, silver dragees, fancy sprinkles, pistachio nuts, chocolate drizzle or dainty fondant or butter cream motifs, and place in the refrigerator until it is time to serve.
It was a true challenge won, getting these confectionary morsels right, only the second time around 😊
