52 weeks of baking – Afternoon Tea
When I was a kid my brother and I came up with a rule, he got to make pies, I got to make cookies and cakes. We were not allowed to make something the other person was allowed to make for whatever reason, it was just a silly kid rule and we stuck to it.
As I got older I started to make more complicated cakes, still very basic, but I made different fillings and tried my hand at different frosting other than basic American buttercream. Two times I tried making petit fours, tiny little bite sized cakes covered in poured foxndant. Both times I failed on the first step, the cake. A Genoise sponge is the common cake chosen for a delicate petit four, it’s leavened with lots of eggs and there is very little else to it. My cake ended up dense and eggy, there was nothing cake like about it except that it was in the shape of a squashed cake.
It’s been over 10 years since I thought about making petit fours, I bet I could do it now, I’ve come a long way with my culinary skills. So the cake turned out great, with that firs step finally accomplished I felt the rest would be kinda easy. I chose an Italian meringue buttercream to help glue things together, I’ve only made that successfully once, my third try at it resulted in an okay out come. Cutting and sandwiching the cake was the easiest step of the whole processes, but pouring the fondant all the cakes made me hate them. I did see that part coming, I’m not a fan of tiny fiddly work. They are so pretty if done correctly, straight sides covered in shiny fondant stacked on a pretty tray for afternoon tea.
I covered about half the cake squares and gave up on these darn things, probably would have helped had I actually had a cooling rack to place them on. Maybe in another 10 years I’ll be able to master these buggers and pour fondant smoothly in one sheet over all of them. Oh well, they tasted good and were half fun to make.
For more click to continue on to http://www.seasonedatsea.com