Week 21 Petit Fours

After a long Christmas break, it was a little difficult to bring myself back to my enthusiastic baking mood. Luckily the things we made in the first week were rather interesting. It is called Petit fours which means "little baked items" in French. It is usually enjoyed with a cup of coffee at the end of a meal. 

Traditionally there are 3 main categories of petit fours. Petit Four Sec which means it is dry. It is normally easier to make and has a longer shelf life. We made 3 item that are in this category.

Langues de chat which is also known as Cat's tongue. It is a crispy texture biscuit. It was quite easy to make, the batter is piped into little lines and then designed with zig zags using the same batter but with cocoa powder added into it. The batter spreads and comes out flat. Apparently it looks like a cat's tongue. Hmm..... does it?

Piping Langue De Chat

Next was macarons which is also a Petit Four Sec item but it has a filling between 2 macaron shells. We made the macarons with the French method. I tried the French method before and mine didn't turn out very smooth. So I was quite interested in trying the French method again. The icing sugar and almond meal are sifted together and the egg white is whipped into stiff peaks before the dry ingredients are folded in. The consistency of the batter should look like thick lava. Not too thick and not too runny. The trick is to keep mixing it until when you bang the bowl gently on the table, the batter deflates slightly rather than keeping its shape. 

Macaron shells

As for the filling, we made white chocolate ganache which was infused with orange. The orange flavour was quite nice. Our macarons was slightly browner than what we wanted but it was hardly noticeable. (hehe)

Orange flavoured macarons

Sablé biscuits is another petit four sec that we made. The pastry was very much like a sweetcrust pastry. According to our trainer, the key to a good pastry is to make sure the pastry is well rested in the fridge. Dont overwork the pastry and always keep it cold. I brought a small cookie cutter to make little flowers. Then some we used the fluted tart moulds. The little flowers were sandwiched with some chocolate buttercream and some were sandwiched with white chocolate ganache again and topped with hazelnut.

Sablé cookies

Sablé cookie with hazelnut and buttercream

Then there is another category of petit four which is called the Petit Four Glacé which means it is "iced" with some coating like fondant. We made sponge cake which we then layered with some strawberry jam to about 2cm thick. We made 4 layers and then cut them into cubes about the size of 2.5cm x 2.5cm. Then we wrapped the sponge with some marzipan and then glazed it with fondant coating. 

Layering the sponge cake 

We made some vanilla hazelnut crescents which was a little like shortbread texture. I didn't really like the appearance of the cookie because of the shape and the colour. It looks a little like something that you will find on the ground of some parks. It's the one at the far left of the plate below. 

Plate up petit fours

Overall, I enjoyed making the petit fours. Just didn't like that the class was huge again due to combined class. It was also annoying that some students were irresponsible and left their dishes for other people to clean. This term we have another new trainer, this time it is a guy. He has his way of doing things and I am learning to adapt to his style in the kitchen. I guess it is a good thing that we can have a new trainer, then we can learn different techniques by different professionals. I hope this term goes well. 

I wasn't too happy with how we decorated and presented the petit fours that day because the glacé cake was too plain. It needed some decorations on it. I took my share of the petit fours home and the next morning, I woke up at 5am because I couldn't sleep. As I was tossing and turning in bed, all I can think about was how the petit fours were not complete and needed a slight finishing touch to it. So I got up and melted some chocolate and decorated the cakes and took some photos. 

Chocolate decoration

Ah.... at least now I feel better that the job is done and they look a little prettier.