Chocolate Raspberry Petits Fours

A few weeks ago, I became completely enamoured with the idea of making my own petits fours after I came across this post by the creative Vegan YumYum. I love these miniature, bite-sized sweets...can we say tea party time?

This photo, and the next, courtesy of Zarafa

I didn't want to mess around with these dainty little things, until I felt up for the challenge. The delicate layering, cutting and dipping looked truly intimidating. Plus, I wasn't sure what I'd do with thirty odd petits fours besides eat them myself, or pack them for D's lunch, so I thought it best to wait for an occasion.

It appears these were eaten al fresco

I needed some practice with dipping too, and since there weren't any petits fours to dip at work, I practiced on buckeyes - dozens upon dozens of them because that's all people seemed to want to buy this week. Suffice it to say, I make really, really excellent buckeyes now (I would go so far as stating that I could be the next buckeye dipping champion). I considered myself ready for the challenge, and this week there happened to be an occasion, and I decided that Ken (and Z) could benefit from a box of sweets.

They turned out well in the end, although they were the source of an afternoon's frustration dotted with lots of profanity and several text messages to D ("I suck at this!" "I hate this glaze!" "Why didn't I just bake a cake??"). This was definitely a humbling exercise which made me appreciate the fine art of dipping. I'm just glad I had enough pieces to choose from to make up a presentable box (and no, I'm not showing you the fugly evidence) for Mr. Ken, who is moving to Texas this week.

OK, I know you're all dying to run off and make your own now. Here's a quick How-to, and please also check out the links I refer to.

How to Make Your Own Petits Fours:

1. First, do a little reading: I highly recommend VeganYumYum's blog post as well as this Baking911 page. Decide what flavour you'd like to make, and choose an appropriate pound, sponge or genoise cake recipe. These cakes all have a fine, dense crumb that will make for easier cutting. Bake either in a jelly roll pan that won't warp, or split the batter up among some square pans to bake thinnish layers. I used the chocolate cake recipe from the Confetti Cakes book and divided the batter in two 8" square pans lined with parchment.

2. Choose (and make, if necessary) your filling. It can be buttercream, ganache, jam, whatever. I decided on chocolate buttercream so it would be more visible between the layers.

3. Cool the cakes (I find it easier to cut when it's been refridgerated a couple hours) and then carefully slice into 1/4" thick layers. I'm not kidding you, this part is kind of hard. If you have a cake leveler, now's a good time to use it. Alternatively, you can just use a large serrated knife and run it along the outside of the cake to mark the cutting line, and then continue sawing around until you reach the middle. Carefully lift the layers with a spatula and your hands, or a piece of cardboard, and rest it on a cutting board. I got four layers out of mine.

4. Fill the cake carefully, layering cake, filling, cake, filling, until your overall cake is just under 1.5" high. You can brush it with a glaze, or syrup, or add a thin layer of rolled marzipan at this point (I used some raspberry syrup with marsala since I like a boozy cake). Now, chill the cake for an hour so it will be easier to cut. You're more than half way there!

5. While your cake is chilling, prepare the icing. This can either be a glace icing, poured fondant (I think those two are different), a very liquid chocolate ganache, or just plain melted chocolate, which I wish I'd decided to use, since I am very proficient with that from the buckeyes. Anyhow, I decided to use the chocolate glaze recipe from Baking911, with added corn syrup for shine.

6. Cut the cakes into little 1.5" cubes like so. Eat the scraps. I told you this was an enjoyable process. Time to get out a grill rack, a dipping fork, and a spoon or little spatula.

7. This is when the cursing potentially begins, if you have high expectations like me and don't like messing up. I don't have any photos of the dipping process, because I was too covered in chocolate to get the camera, but here is a helpful step-by-step tutorial from the Callebaut Chocolate people that shows how to dip things in chocolate (you may need to register, but it's free so don't worry). The Callebaut people tell you to plunge it straight down and lift. Now, my ganache with the corn syrup was super viscose, and I soon found out the plunge method wasn't going to work, so I ended up just using a spatula to scoop up the ganache and let it dribble it over top, then shake off the extra. I kind of wish I'd made my glaze more liquid, but whatever. As Vegan YumYum suggests, dip the ugly ones first, because you're going to get better by the end and you'll have saved the prettiest cubes for last. Carefully transfer your dipped cubes to the drip rack and leave it alone to set. Try not to touch them to test if they're set. It's kind of like waiting for nail polish to dry...don't get marks on them!

8. Now it's time for a little more decorating! In other words, covering up the ugly bits. My ganache was beautifully shiny, but not without airbubbles. If anyone has any suggestions for removing air bubbles, I would be very grateful for your advice. To cover up some of the uneven surfaces, I melted some white chocolate in a ziploc back, cut a tiny hole and drizzled the petits fours and topped them with a raspberry for cuteness. You can dress yours up any way you want! The more pro you get at this, the less deco-concealing you'll have to do.

And ta-da! You're all done. Now sit back and enjoy your handiwork.

A Cake with Blue Dots, and more!

In today's second blog installment, I've got more cakes to show you, starting with the one I made for my volunteer job this week. This one was number 4 in a series of fondant exercises, and the practice is going well. The cake is actually baked from scratch this time (I usually use cake mix, which is the norm for these volunteer cakes), which took longer than I expected, and as a result I was a little short on decorating time. That's what I get for not baking the cake ahead of schedule! So, I didn't mix any new colours and just used what I already had - like this bright blue I made for the fish cake. I cut out all the dots using different sized piping tips and pasted them on with a dab of water, arranging them from the bottom up. It's not my favourite decorating job, but it's not that bad either. I think it's the colour I dont' like. Anyhow, I used chocolate chips for the writing, which I melted in a ziploc bag and stuck a plain tip in. This seems to be my prettiest writing job yet, if I say so myself.

This week I received a few pictures of the cakes I've been helping with! Remember how I made two cake layers way taller than normal? Well, here they are, the top and middle tier. I don't think people would have really gave it much thought. See how smooth the icing is?? That's what a month of practice will do! Imagine if this was my full time job!

Here's the bridal shower cake from last weekend. It was meant to match the invitations, which were aqua and chocolate brown. I never saw the finished cake, so it was fun to get the picture in my email this week. Like the dress? Like the daisies? Guess who made those? ME!! (and in my opinion, they're the best part of this cake)

Alright, enough gloating. Must stay modest. Stay tuned for more!

Rivets

After many weeks of procrastinating, I finally practiced making rivets (there they are, on the bottom two corners). Now I can join things together!

A cute, fat red bird to brighten your day

The birdie is a nice shade of bright red formica, which is really easy to cut and can be sanded easily. I have yet to decide what to do with this little guy. Lots of little keychains and tags are piling up in my bin, with various cut-outs and things in them. Soon, though, I think I will start a ring project - another student in my class is making the prettiest ring and I want to make one too! She also had a beautifully shiny copper bracelet, which is baffling because I could never get my copper so shiny. I'll have to ask her about it...

This weekend is Rib and Jazz fest down on the waterfront, featuring something like two dozen award-winning rib teams. One of them from our home town of Toronto! I think I know what dinner's gonna be for the next couple of days :)

Raiding of the Remnants Bin

Uh oh. I rediscovered the remnants bin at the craft store! I justified buying a bagful of ends with the fact that they will be turned into something fun and useful, so I'm in the middle of trying to figure out what to make with my newly acquired materials. I promise not to stash it into my ever-growing pile of fabric. :)

Other than cakes, there hasn't been too much happening on the craft front that I can blog about yet. I've been making stuff in jewelry class, and knitting a thing or two. Oh! I forgot to mention that I received my lovely Pay It Forward gift from Z.Knits, which you should have a look at...it is ultra fun and cute, and I love using it. Hmm. I'd better get on with my PIF gifts too. I think I've already missed the 6 month deadline.

But it's hard to do stuff when it's so darn hot out. Is it just me or does it feel like the temperature has been 95F plus forever?? It makes me want to do nothing except hide in the air conditioning. Or a cold pool. This past weekend was a hot and sluggish, and my main goal was to stay as cool as possible. We had some friends over for supper on Friday night, and Saturday morning I went to decorate wedding cakes again, although none were fully completed while I was there, so I don't have the end results to show you. Too bad, because I made the cutest little fondant cut-out dress for a bridal shower cake! I've been promised I will receive some pics of once they were all done, so I'll post that whenever it happens. Saturday afternoon we went for a nice swim followed by a late showing of Batman: the Dark Knight (really good), and on Sunday I worked all day at the bakery. In the evening, D made the most spectacular exploding mess when he accidentally dropped a large bowl full of saag paneer, which sprayed 3 metres in all directions, including on the ceiling. Needless to say, our home will be smelling like delicious curry for the next week, or two.

And there you have it, my weekend update. Hope you had a nice weekend too! Happy crafting.

Yellow Stripes!

My best effort so far, what do you think?

Hooray, I had absolutely no problems with the fondant today! It totally behaved itself, and I think I owe it to those pointers I got from Baking911. I made sure the cake was completely even and didn't put too much buttercream on the outside (actually, it was more of just a crumb coat). Perhaps it was the fondant smoothing tool I dug out of my cake decorating box? It seemed to ease the fondant into place quite well. The whole thing was over in less than 2 minutes, no cracks, no pleats, no tears, just a shiny... smooth... flawless... marshmallow-looking surface! Happy sigh of relief. Notice how I avoided garish colours today? Yes, I tried. It's more of a garden party kind of cake, I think. Maybe for a tea party of some sort. Speaking of tea parties, I've been curious about making petit fours after seeing them here. Don't they look super cute and delicious?

Getting back to the topic at hand, here's how I did it, if you want to try this at home: once the cake is covered in fondant, place a smaller circle on top and using a toothpick, lightly mark its edge to create a guide for your stripes:

Then, mix your colour choice in fondant for stripes (about a baseball-sized lump for this 8" cake). Measure from the guide edge to the base of the cake (mine was 4.5"). Cut out your 1" wide strips with a ruler (I used this quilting ruler thing - don't forget to wash it first) and pizza cutter:

Now, at one edge of each strip, cut a round concave edge using the circle you traced and a sharp knife.

Wet the back of the fondant strip with a little bit of water. Don't get it too drippy, or it'll go sliding everywhere and the colours will bleed. With curved edge facing up, paste the strip from bottom working up. Use a right angled object to make sure the stripe is completely straight (I suppose you can skip this, but don't blame me if your stripes don't line up when you get around the whole cake):

Work your way around, leaving 1" spaces between stripes, until the cake is 3/4 covered. Measure again and make sure you have enough space and enough strips to cover this last quarter properly - I had to cheat and cut the last strip about 1.2" and spaced it 1.3". You could probably measure more precisely, but I just eyeballed it (I'm a lazy perfectionist).

That's pretty much it! I piped the bottom edge and inner circle edge with buttercream, and glued on the fondant daisies I made in my last post. Really I should have used gumpaste, but I was too lazy (there's that word again) to make new flowers. According to several book and internet sources, a fondant cake can be stored in a covered box in the coolest spot in your house, and it should keep about 2 days with non-perishable fillings (please correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't want to get blamed for anyone eating mouldy cake). If you're traveling with it, well, good luck.

I drove this thing to the hospice center in the late afternoon, in the 95 degree heat, with the air conditioning on full blast. Hopefully the birthday girl enjoys it! Incidentally, I ran into the volunteer coordinator, who asked me if I wanted to help teach the next volunteer cake decorating class, so of course I said yes, I would love to!

There's another birthday cake I'm scheduled for next week, so expect to see more fondant. Hopefully I'll also have some knitting to blog about soon too!

Spammed!

It finally happened! Grr.

Today I received my first bit of blog spam, left in the comments section of my Travel Tips post. It was a perfectly nice comment, but still, it linked to travel discount website, and I really don't want stuff like that happening on my little craft blog.

So, I turned on the comment moderation functions and I'm also no longer allowing anonymous posts. Sorry! I love receiving your comments, so please, don't let this stop you from writing to me! Or if you haven't ever left me a note, this is encouragement to start :)

I've got a pretty cake waiting to be blogged about next, so stay tuned!

More Fondant Practice: Blue Fish Cake

Delicious little cupcake for my afternoon snack

Before I show you my tacky fish cake, here's the fondant chrysanthemum in action on top of this vanilla chocolate cupcake. I put this under a cake dome and sure enough, the humidity caused the fondant to soften. I've seen it with my own eyes! Fondant doesn't harden permanently! Hence bad for decorations that need to hold their shape well.

Ooh. This is probably the tackiest looking cake I have decorated to date, and I didn't even do it on purpose to embarrass D at his lab party... it just didn't come out quite right...looked much better in my head. Actually, I was going to make stripes...did I mention it was a delicious cake inside?

Once it was deemed officially tacky, I practice my piping skills on it

Aside from colour choice being a little revolting, I once again had some major problems with fondant. Even though it was from a fresh package, the fondant seemed a little stiff after I added all the colouring, but I carried on, since it was still soft-ish. Some tiny cracks at the edges when I rolled it out to 1/4" thick. But, I draped it on, and...cracking!! At the top edges!! Ugh. Plus, the buttercream was squishing around like mad and I regretted having removed the cake from the fridge for so long before covering it with fondant. The result you see is my effort to patch the big holes with vibrant green fish and polka dots.

So, I then did what I usually do these days: whenever I have any question about something, I immediately go online to see what Google comes up with about the subject. And not surprisingly, I found lots of good info on the search term "my fondant is cracking". In hindsight, I should have done a little research before making the second cake. One particularly good website (though a little visually scattered) was Baking911, which I used before when reading up on cookie-making, which offered lots of suggestions for how to work with fondant. Cracking, I learned, results from several possibilities:

• Fondant is rolled too thickly, so when you drape it on the weight of the excess is too heavy and begins to crack at the cake edge.
• Fondant is too dry (in which case knead some shortening)
• Fondant isn't kneaded well enough (it needs to be very malleable - when you pinch a ball of it between your fingers, it should squish easily without cracks)

There are probably a lot more reasons too, but this was a good starting point for someone like me. And I don't know why I didn't think of it, but the site suggested practicing on the backs of cake pans instead of baking endless cakes to cover with fondant:

Even a measuring cup can have a smooth, elegant fondant covering

Yes, yes, we all know: practice makes perfect - I did it another three times and got the cracking under control! Yippee!

The news of this week: I'm going back to work. No longer a woman of complete leisure. After an extended post-vacation holiday, the bakery finally called and so I'll be going in three days this week. I'll be working closer to home too, at one of their other locations, which will be nice since I can ride my bike. Otherwise, nothing too exciting. We take the car in tomorrow morning to have a rattle looked at, then I decorate my cake, and Thursday I'm working and going to jewelry class.