I just got an order for wedding shower petit fours for Feb. 19th. I've never made them before, so I was wondering if someone who has can give me some tips. I plan on doing some practice ones later this week.

Can I bake the cake, cut the squares & freeze them? Or can I bake the sheet cake, freeze it, then cut them? Should I bake the cake in a regular 12x18 cake pan, or can I just use a jelly roll type sheet pan?? And what type of icing do I use...poured bc? poured fondant? gananche? The colors are off-white/ivory and a palest pink, like a 'blush' color. Anyone have any advice or ideas?? TIA! (sorry sooo many ?'s )

bumping

you can use a jellyroll pan and freeze the cake so that it cuts cleaner and better...if you are going to layer them, bake, fill and then freeze..then you can just cut them, from experience they handle better that way..I've always used poured fondant, you can color it and flavor it any way you like and it dries quick..

Frozen cake squares are best to work with. I no longer use fondant. I only use candy melts to dip the cake in. They come out really smooth & taste great!

THANKS FOR POSTING I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO ALSO. IF SOME ONE COULD GIVE SOME STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS THAT WOULD BE GREAT.

I highly recommend practice ahead of time. these can be a HUGE pain.

You want the cake to have a few crumbs as possible. I freeze the cake and then cut it and put it back in the freezer. If you keep the pieces frozen, the covering process is easier.

I found that a mixture of candy melts and royal work best to cover the cakes. 1 part candy to 3 or 4 parts royal. It covers well, and doesn't dry rock hard. Once they are dipped, they don't need freezing, but the fridge helps set the cover.

Some people dip them, but I find a squeeze bottle the easiest to control.

You can also cover these with ganache (white or dark chocolate).

For those of you who ACD magazine, the december issue had the petit fours cover with chocolate on them. These are great, I have the kit, here is the link. I also PM you.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Tiffany-Box-Petit-Four-Kit-1-Cake-Decorating_W0QQitemZ4431463214QQcategoryZ79631QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

Here's a couple threads on petit fours to check out:

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-15151-petit.html+fours
http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-15151-petit.html+fours

Maybe they will help

Here is some info that I've sent out to others on here regarding petit fours... I've done and do a lot of these...

Cake:

1 pkg white cake mix
2 tablespoons oil
1 1/3 cup water
1/8 teaspoon almond extract
3 egg whites

Blend all ingredients for 30 seconds. Scrape down bowl and mix again on medium speed for 2 minutes. Pour batter in a prepared jellyroll pan (wax paper in bottom of pan, sides greased and floured). Bake at 325 degrees for 18 to 22 minutes or until sides come away from pan or top springs back when touched.

Jellyroll pan should be approximately 12 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches.

Put wax paper over the hot cake. Do this immediately from removing cake from oven. Press down on the wax paper using oven mittens or a clean kitchen cloth. Leave wax paper on for 5-6 minutes then peel off. All the crumbs will come off of the cake. Flip cake out onto your cake board. Peel bottom wax paper off from what was the bottom of your cake. Petit fours are crustless. Let cake cool completely. Icing top of cake only with thinned buttercream icing. I put my cake into a cake box, wrap with a trash bag (make sure it's not a scented trash bag!) and freeze. I take my frozen cake out of the freezer and cut off the edges (sides) of the cake where there is a crust. Remember, petit fours are crustless

Pour Fondant:

1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk (I use powdered milk or skim milk. If using powdered milk, use 1/3 cup and fill a one-cup measuring cup to the one cup mark and stir)
2 pounds Sifted confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
1 teaspoon butter flavoring
1/2 teaspoon almond flavoring
2 1/2 tablespoons Crisco

In top of a double boiler, combine Crisco, salt and milk. Heat until Crisco melts. Remove from heat, add flavorings and confectioners sugar. Mix with a rotary beater until blended (I use a whisp or a hand held mixer). Keep fondant mixter over hot water while working with petit fours. More milk can be added if it gets too thick. DO NOT REHEAT FONDANT!!!

I put each square of my cake onto a large spatula (cake type). I use a small dipping spoon (like you'd use for soup or gravy). Dip the fondant into your spoon, pour over your cake. I use another smaller cake spatula like the ones I use to put icing on my cakes and rake the fondant off the larger spatula then I push the petit four off onto a wire rack. I use Wilton's wire rack that has the really small squares in it. Let your petit fours dry 2-4 hours before you handle them. I place each one into a small cupcake type liner. I make my liners square shaped by pushing them into a square box such as an empty aluminum foil box with the ends cut off. It will take the cupcake liners a couple of days to take on the square shape. This looks really pretty with the square shape on pretty serving trays or serving dishes.




Ganache Petit Fours


Bake a chocolate cake according to the package directions in a petit four pan lined with wax paper. Make sure the sides of your pan or greased and floured or pan coated.

Follow the directions above for removing crumbs, etc. I tint my icing brown or you could make chocolate icing in your prefer and spread on cake, then freeze.



To make ganache, put 1/2 cup of whipping cream in a double boiler pot. Heat until edges of cream begin to bubble slightly. Turn off heat and add 1 pound of dark chocolate candy melts. Let this sit for 5-6 minutes and then stir. Pour ganache over petit fours exactly as stated above. Let the petit fours dry for 2-4 hours.

i just made petit fours for the first tims this past weekend. the only time i have ever seen someone do it, they used a recipe where you put your ingredients in a seperate pot over another pot of boiling water. it was a little complicated for me to remember...
anyway, i have a Woman's Day magazine i had been saving from last febuary with some cute heart shaped petit fours on the front, and the recipe seems alot eaiser, eleminating the use of the boiling water and pots. here it is if you want to try it. everyone loves the taste of them, i got alot of compliments and some of the guest didnt even get a chance to try them because they were all gone!
(also i used a sara lee frozen pound cake because of the time frame i was working with)

for the icing:
5 1/4 cups (about 1lb) confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup milk
3 tbsp light corn syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract, or whatever you prefer to use
and the food color past of your choice

stir all ingredients into a bowl, except for the coloring until smooth and thin as maple syrup. use this to spoon over your frozen squares of cake. let them set 30 minutes. then thin the rest of your icing with as little amount of water as possible, give them a second coat and then let them set for an hour.

you can place your squares on a cooling rack and put a piece of wax paper underneath. so that when you cover your cakes the icing that slides off you can add back to you bowl.


i thought that joann's ides of using the squeeze bottle was excellent. after making that one batch i never wanted to do it again. but i think with the bottle it would be a lot easier and a lot quicker! thanks for that tip!

good luck with making them however you choose to do it

oh yeah, i said that you do not add your color. you add it to your icing to mix in if that is the color you want for all your petit fours. in this recipe it called for 2 different colors so that is why it said not to mix it, because you seperate your icing 2 ways, then you mix it in. sorry, i was rereading after postin and i caught that

This is great! Thanks everyone for all of your help I'll post some pics after I try them and see what all of you think

Jenn, I make petit fours all the time and it really isn't that difficult once you get a system going. I haven't read the other responses so might be repeating but here is what I do:

Bake a Pillsbury White Cake Mix in a 11 x 15 pan. This will make a thin cake which is actually good for petit fours in my opinion. Make sure that you don't cook too long (usually takes between 10-15 minutes)...you want the cake to be moist and since it is so thin it doesn't take long.

Once cooled, wrap well and put in freezer.

Next day make buttercream icing and ice top of cake. Get as smooth as possible then apply a layer of wax paper over top; rewrap in the plastic wrap and put back in freezer.

You can freeze this up to 2 weeks. The more frozen the better imo.

When it's time to pour the fondant, go ahead and mix it in a pot on top of the stove and turn on lowest low. Then pull your cake out of the freezer, unwrap, and cut all the edges off the cake using a very sharp (and preferably long) knife dipped in hot water then wiped clean.

Once you've cut all the edges off the cake, take a ruler and toothpic and measure 1 1/2" increments (I measure all sides of cake) Then start cutting; making sure you knife is cleaned after every couple of cuts (dipped in hot water and wiped with paper towel).

I have a Wilton cooking rack I put my petit fours on; then put over a 12 x 18 cake pan to catch the drippings.

(Oh, while you are cutting the cakes you periodically stir the fondant )

I add my flavoring just right before I get ready to pour, btw.

The quick pour fondant should be warm but never too hot. I actually test it by putting my on the bottom of the pot; if I can do that it's okay. If it's too hot, well, I have a burnt hand.

Seriously, if you happen to get it too hot take it off the burner and let it cool a little before pouring. A couple of minutes or so.

Once you start pouring, you just pick the pot up by the handle and pour from the pot (so don't use one too big or that doesn't have a handle)...

After you have poured all the fondant out, you'll remove the rack from over the pan and scoop up all the leftover fodant and put it back in the pot to reheat. Repeat procedure til all are coated.

The more you do this the quicker it gets and you'll find petit fours really aren't that hard at all.

This will make 4 1/2 dozen 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" petit fours.

PM me if you need any more info.

Sorry for all the typos.

Thanks LisaMS!! I may get to working on these sooner than I'd planned...I'm anxious to try it! lol I'll definitely PM you if I run into trouble BTW - where in MS are you??

Jenn, I'm right outside of Jackson.

Yeah, just hollor if you need me.

I hate to do Petit Fours. However I was reading an article that used the flexible molds to do them. You melt the candy melts (flavor them) and pour just enough to cover the bottom. Let that harden. Cut your cake a fraction smaller than the little mold and place the piece of cake in the center of the mold. Pour the candy melt into the mold making sure to fill it on all sides. Let that harden and supposedly you will have a perfect petit four. I have tried and tried the poured fondant and I want a perfectly smooth beautiful petit four and I have yet to get them. Next time I am going to try the mold trick.

Has anyone tried this method?

Just doing a little more research online & came across this. Really neat idea that I thought ya'll might like to see...I would love to try this one day! It would work well for a family reunion or something of the sort. Happy viewing!

from www.sweetconstructions.com

I do mine pretty much like LisaMS does. I made two cake layers in two typical jelly roll pans - using my regular yellow cake, cooled, put buttercream between the two and on the top layer (this made the tops really smooth looking when I poured the fondant on) and froze. After they were frozen, I cut , and put them back in the freezer while making the quick pour fondant. When the fondant was ready, I took them out and held them one by one and ladled the fondant over them, then drip on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet. I didn't have any luck pouring it over several at one time because I didn't get the coverage I wanted on the sides, so I went to the one-by one method. It went pretty fast once I saw that I could pick them up, pour, then slide them onto to the rack. After they had set, I just piped my decoration on them. You can look at the ones I did in my gallery. HTH! I would definately do a practice run before you have to do your order! Good luck!

For those that drizzle using a spoon or squeeze bottle, y'all really should try pouring from a small pot. (I use a 3 qt. pot) Much quicker! I just move the pot in a circular motion over each petit four while I'm pouring until the sides are completely covered then move on to the next. It doesn't matter how much runs off...just scrape it back into the pot and reheat once you've poured out all the icing in the pot. It takes me 3 reheats to cover all 4 1/2 dozen petit fours.

The only problem I have with reusing is that there were a few crumbs in mine...guess I could have strained it. Maybe with doing more, I will have less crumbs!!!! I did use a small pot with mine, but I just didn't have good luck getting the sides completely covered. Just need more practice, huh!!!!

Straining would be hard Christy. I get a few crumbs in my fondant too but what I find is that when I reheat and repour the crumbs don't cause a real problem. I manage to pour again without crumbs ending up on the tops of my cakes...I think they kinda sink to the bottom. You are doing good by keeping your cakes frozen; that helps a lot. It does take a little practice pouring from the pot to get the sides coated; just keep circling around and around the petit four cake...but the more you do it the easier it gets.

just as an FYI squires a uk cake supply offers a petite pan for squares and circles. I get my sugarcraft magazines from them and they ship very quickly for overseas.

www.squires-group.co.uk

Ok, just one question...I made these before but I had a lot of problems with the bottoms. They stuck to my rack and when I picked them up to put them on a tray some of the bottom came off. Did I not let them dry or if I remove the crumbs off the top with the wax paper like ntertayneme does will that solve my problem. The top of the petit fours should be the bottom of the cake right?

Sorry if this is confusing, but I'm determined to get these right!

What I've wondered too was that I read that all sides of the petite four should be covered to prevent drying out...does that mean the bottom should be covered too? Because in that case, that would make a devil of a time trying to cover the entire thing! ( I make chocolates at christmas, so I know!)

I have always covered each one of mine individually also (for the crumb reason, AND for making sure I get all the sides covered too) I just get into a rythum with it and it goes pretty quickly. (I don't freeze any of my stuff, so I know that is why I have some crumbs going on) I have had better luck using a pound cake type recipe though - they seem to be easier for me to work with since I don't deal with the firmness of something frozen. I know I always cringe when I get an order for them though - lots of work on those little buggers.

I don't put anything on the bottom of mine. I just set them into individual paper liners and then down into a box. They seem to stay fresh like that for me

I don't coat the bottoms of mine either. They stay perfectly fresh in individual paper cups and the bottoms don't show. Justcakn, I'm not sure what you are talking about with the bottom of the cake being the top of the petit four. But as far as getting the cakes off the rack, try using a decorator's knife (the thing you use for icing the cake) under each one instead of just picking up with your hand.

I'm not as meticulous as ntertyneme about getting the crusts off the cake; but I do think one thing that may help with less crumbs is 1) make sure not to bake too long (I like my cake to be very light golden on top... takes 10-15 minutes tops in my oven.) 2) I find that spraying my pan with cooking spray and then lining with wax paper helps too.

My recipe is similar to the Wilton Poured Fondant recipe and I really don't have any problems reheating. May have to add a couple drops water to thin it each time I scrape it back in the pot, but that's about it. But it is important not to let icing get too hot; this is true, or it will become gritty.

My recipe:

3/4 cup water mixed with 3 TB clear karo syrup
2 lbs. powdered sugar
1 tsp almond or clear vanilla extract