Thursday, November 10, 2011

SOUTHERN CELEBRATION PETIT FOURS



Today’s recipe is special because I have always loved petit fours.  A petit four in Southern culture is usually a small iced cake. In other cultures the term petit four, which actually means “small oven”, may refer to other types of small pastries or desserts.  What makes them unique is that the cake is typically very delicate and the icing is translucent.  Every good bridal or baby shower in the South featured wonderful petit fours and the ones from the Rich’s Department store bakery in the 60’s and 70’s were the very best (wow, I’m old)! I started making cakes in my 1968 mint green Easy Bake oven.  Man, I loved that thing—even when it burned my fingers with the light bulb surrounded by metal!  I have been trying to make these magnificent confections ever since I was old enough to read a recipe book.  That’s what we did before computers were born, kids.  Anyway,  I’ll keep trying until I get it right, but I really wanted to share my latest recipe for petit fours with you today.  I’m celebrating the blessings in my life, which you as a reader of my recipe blog, definitely are!  Thank you for taking time out of your life to read and hopefully use these recipes from my life.
PS.  My family found a mint green 1968 Easy Bake oven in its original box on Ebay and gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago. 


*Petit fours work best when made with firm  cake that doesn’t have much of a crumb—such as a sponge cake.  You can also use white pound cake or any white cake, but sponge is preferable.
**Making petit fours is very labor intensive and requires patience.  Allow yourself plenty of free time to have fun experimenting.  You may even want to make the cakes one day and then ice them the next day.

Sponge cake:
1 and ¾ sticks butter, softened
1 cup sugar
4 extra large eggs
1 ½  cups self-rising flour, sifted
¼ t. salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
¼ t. almond flavoring

Instructions:
*With an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until creamy.
*Add eggs one at a time.
*Add vanilla and almond flavorings.
*Add flour and salt in at low speed.

*Grease and line a 9X13 metal cake pan with parchment (or waxed) paper.
*Spoon batter evenly into pan.
*Bake at 350 degrees until a cake tester, when inserted into the center of the cake, comes out clean.  Also the cake will begin to pull away from the sides of the pan when it is done.
*Remove the cake from the oven and  run a knife gently around all 4 sides of the pan.  Let cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes.

*After 10 minutes, invert the cake onto a flat baking sheet.
The cake needs to completely cool before cutting it into squares or other shapes.  I even recommend covering the entire cake and placing it in the refrigerator to chill it.

*After the cake is very cool, cut into desired shapes (squares, triangles, circles, etc.) with a biscuit cutter or just with a knife. 
You may cover the shapes and place the tray in the freezer at this point and ice them tomorrow or go ahead and proceed to the icing.

Petit Four Icing: double this if you wish
4 and ½ cups confectioners sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup (Karo for you Southerners)
¼ cup water (add more later if you need to thin the icing)
1 t. vanilla
½ t. almond flavoring
2 drops of the food coloring of your choice (optional)

Instructions:
*Place the sugar, syrup and water in a heat proof bowl and place over a pan of boiling water, stirring constantly with a whisk.
*At first it will look as if the ingredients will not combine, but they will.
*You can switch to using a spoon once combined.  Add water if icing needs to be thinner. 
*Remove the icing from the heat and add the vanilla and the almond flavorings.
The icing should be very runny.
Icing the Petit Fours:
*You may place the cake shapes on a wire rack which has been placed on top of a sheet of parchment paper.  Then spoon the icing over each cake and allow it to drizzle over the sides. Use a knife to help the icing cover each surface of the cakes. 
*I seem to have better luck when I place the cake shapes directly onto a sheet of parchment paper and then spoon the icing over them.
Just experiment and see which method you like best.
*You may need to scoop up excess icing from the parchment paper and return it to the heat safe bowl placed over boiling water to return the icing to its runny state.
*This process may have to be repeated several times during the icing process since the icing will harden rather quickly.

Filling and Decorating Petit Fours:
*You may slice each cake shape in half and spread a fruit filling of your choice—then put the slices back together and proceed with the icing process (I don’t usually add a fruit filling).
*Decorate the petit fours any way you wish.  You may layer a drizzle of icing in a design on top of a base of hardened icing—or you may use fruit or sugar flowers or even edible real flowers to decorate.

1 comment:

  1. I should have been reading these before because I love the commentary. Obviously I'll never cook them but it's fun to know the background.

    ReplyDelete