Cookbook vs. Catalog Follies

[Smithy]

I don't know when or whether I'll get around to that holiday baking, but I will give a preliminary report on petits fours. I ordered a bunch from Swiss Colony -- some to share and some to test. I'm not as disappointed as someone had suggested earlier in this topic. Maybe I'm just a cheap date. 🙂

 

Here's a sampler box:

 

 

...and cross-sections of five of those.

 

 

I was surprised to discover that the lemon petits fours have a delightfully tart flavor that plays off well against the frosting layers. The strawberry flavor leaves me unimpressed, as I'd rather expected. Ditto the ones with coconut. Overall, I think it's about the firm frosting (fondant, I think) with tender cake in between. I bought a batch of Chocolate Lover's petits fours for a friend, and discovered yesterday that its chocolate frosting layer is rich and fudgy.

 

These are good enough for me (as I said, maybe I'm a cheap date) and I doubt I'll go to the trouble of making them. The Bavarian tortes or other confections from Kaffeehaus, now...maybe those will be a challenge for later this month.