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Petits Fours


Joni

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Had the most delicious Petit Fours from a bakery in Portland, Oregon (Beaverton Bakery)..a very moist almond cake with strawberry fondant layered in between and the fondant is a white chocolate. The almond cake is very moist and probably 3 small layers inside. Has anyone had success in making these delicious cakes. The small ones are 1.5 inches squared.

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And I've been making biscuit, layering with jam and pouring fondant over. I hate doing these with a passion and am always looking for a better way to build this mousetrap. Are you baking the frangipane the way you do for rainbow cookies?

Edited by JeanneCake (log)
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What is your recipe for frangipane?

This is the recipe I use. It's from class notes, so it's kind of "shorthand" but I think pretty clear. The measurements for the vanilla, dark rum, and lemon zest were about 1 tsp. each and about 1/2 tsp. salt. You can find more detailed recipes pretty easily, though.

Frangipane

In order:

8 oz. butter

8 oz. sugar (add in 2 parts)

mix well before adding

8 oz. almond flour (or any nut flour)

5 eggs (2 at a time)

vanilla, dark rum, lemon zest

1-1/2 oz. AP flour

salt

Can use as tart filling, cake, or petit four base.

Traditional application

Apricot Glaze

glazed cherries

slivered almonds

Raw sucré shell

1. Put 1/8” raspberry jam in bottom of raw sucré shell.

2. Cover with frangipane

3. Bake 40-45 minutes at 375.

4. Glaze with apricot glaze.

5. Decorate with cherry and almond “flower”

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  • 1 month later...

I was inspired to use my Felchlin white choc to glaze my latest batch of petit fours. (well, more or less. A friend told me she stopped using fondant years ago and used this) It worked perfectly, so much better than the traditional fondant I'd been using. I never liked poured fondant petit fours because they were so sweet, but this choc is a different matter entirely.

I'm still using my regular old biscuit recipe, though. Would love to have other options - for those who are using an almond joconde, frangipane or whatever, what do you like/don't like about that particular sponge?

I like that my biscuit recipe is so versatile - I use it for the base of my cheesecakes, buche de noel, spring rolls, to line entremets, etc. I've never baked frangipane as a sponge cake before, and I'm not too crazy about the almond sponge from Bo Frieberg either (it seems a little "leathery" to me but that could be that I'm spoiled by the biscuit.) So a compare/contrast would be nice....

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Sorry for the extremely long delay! But here is a great recipe....

27 oz - Almond Paste

20 oz - Sugar

20 oz - Butter

-----------------

25 oz - Eggs

-----------------

9 oz - All Purpose Flour

1)Start with the Almond Paste...Cream that in a mixing machine(you can soften it by adding just a small quantity of the eggs if necessary).

2)Cream the sugar into the almond paste and then cream the butter into that mixture.

3)Add eggs in 1-2 at a time as to not get lumps...wait till it incorporates and then add more.

4)Mix in the flour until everything is incorporated and then you can bake.

Bake at 400 Degreees F on a flat sheet pan. You can then cut the different petit four pieces from that sheet layer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enjoy....

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  • 5 months later...

Well, if you don't have any white coating chocolate (which is what the Felchlin Ultra Gloss is), you can use poured fondant. Do you have the Cake Bible? There's a recipe for "food processor poured fondant" in there, and it would work. It takes a while for the sugar to cool down (an hour), though so plan ahead. That's what I used until my friend told me she used the white choc with better results and far better taste. Poured fondant is similar in texture and taste (sweet!) to the icing you make with confectioner's sugar and milk or water - it's a fluid icing that will eventually firm up like ganache does.

If you freeze your petit four squares, you can dunk them in the fondant with fewer crumbs. Keep it over a water bath or double boiler so it stays fluid and doesn't crust while you're using it. If you use the white choc, you can dunk them too; either way you might want to dunk twice for better coverage. Strain whatever you're using because you will get some crumbs in it no matter how careful you are.

How many of these little darlings do you have to make? If you go with a half-sheet size, with 3 layers of sponge; you can get about 45-50 out of it; very probably more if you are making them dainty little 1" squares. Trim the edges all the way around before you start making your little squares or cuts.

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Hi Rob, you can check out the recipe for poured fondant (sorry, no white choc) here, from when I made religieuses. It's a snap to make.

Mark

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Sorry for the extremely long delay! But here is a great recipe....

27 oz - Almond Paste

20 oz - Sugar

20 oz - Butter

-----------------

25 oz - Eggs

-----------------

9 oz - All Purpose Flour

1)Start with the Almond Paste...Cream that in a mixing machine(you can soften it by adding just a small quantity of the eggs if necessary).

2)Cream the sugar into the almond paste and then cream the butter into that mixture.

3)Add eggs in 1-2 at a time as to not get lumps...wait till it incorporates and then add more.

4)Mix in the flour until everything is incorporated and then you can bake.

Bake at 400 Degreees F on a flat sheet pan. You can then cut the different petit four pieces from that sheet layer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enjoy....

What size pan is this for? Half sheet?

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  • 4 years later...
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