Petit Fours Part II

I’ve frozen the cake as the chef on the video instructed. Now he tells us to take the cake from the freezer and “roll” off the brown crust. Ha! There is nothing rolling off the cake. The crust is stuck so I’m going to cut and frost the cakes, crust and all.

cutting the edges off the cake

First I cut the edges off the cake using a level as a guide. For some reason my family doesn’t own a yardstick, just a measuring tape with a cow’s head on it, so I use a level. After I cut the edges off, I cut the cakes, always cutting in front of the level.

The handy level

I place the square on a wire rack for frosting per the video instructions suspended over a baking pan to catch drips.

placing squares on a rack

Voila!

Now I make the frosting:
Petit Four Frosting Ingredients
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar
• Food coloring (optional)

How to Make Petit Four Frosting
1. Add all ingredients except for the confectioner’s sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
2. Boil without stirring until the mixture reaches 226 degrees and is the consistency of a thin syrup.
3. Remove from heat and cool to 100 degrees (slightly warmer than lukewarm).
4. Sift confectioner’s sugar over the syrup a little at a time, stirring to thoroughly combine after each addition.
5. The icing will have reached the proper consistency when it is just thick enough to coat a spoon.
6. Tint with food coloring, if desired
7. Use while warm; if it gets too thick, reheat in a double boiler until thin enough to pour.

The recipe says to cool the syrup to 100 degrees before adding sugar.

syrup

I cooled it until it was barely warm and even then I had to add twice the amount of confectioners sugar before it turned white and the right consistency.

fondant

Surprise! The hardest part of all is to ice the petit fours with the fondant (frosting.) You spoon the icing over the cakes completely coating them and letting the extra frosting drip down to a tray below. It’s harder than it sounds.
1. Pour the frosting over the cakes, moving slowly over each row, allowing the frosting to drip down the sides of the cakes.
2. You can scrape up the icing that accumulates in the pan, reheating it in a double boiler so that you can reuse it.

Frosted cakes

Allow frosted cakes to sit until they are dry, then remove the cakes from the rack, trimming any excess frosting away from the bottoms with a sharp knife. After the frosting dries, you can add a little holiday decoration—I added an impressionist sprig of holly.

Happy holidays!