Petit Fours

My first attempt at petit fours

Source

The Daring Bakers August 2010 Challenge http://thedaringkitchen.com/ by Elissa of 17 and Baking with small adjustments and without the ice cream

Taste 4 (out of 5)

Difficulty 3 (out of 5)

Ingredients

Brown Butter Pound Cake

- 275 g unsalted butter
- 200 g sifted flour 

- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 185g light brown sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

For the Jam

- 250 g of jam (I used sour cherry)

- juice of 1/2 lemon (optional, if your jam is too sweet)

For Chocolate Glaze

- 250g dark chocolate, finely chopped
- 1 cup/ 250 ml heavy cream
- 1 1/2 tbsp light corn syrup, Golden syrup, or agave nectar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F and put a rack in the center. Butter and flour or line with silicon an 11”x13” pan or deep cookie sheet.

2. Place the butter in a 10” (25cm) skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.

3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. Beat the brown butter and light brown sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.

5. Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.

6. Scrape the batter into the greased and floured 11”x13” pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.

7. Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

For Chocolate Glaze

8. Stir the heavy cream and light corn syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and add the dark chocolate. Let sit 30 seconds, then stir to completely melt the chocolate. Stir in the vanilla and let cool until tepid before glazing the petit fours.

Assembly

9. In a blender mix the jam with the lemon juice (if using the lemon juice). 

10. Once the brown butter pound cake has completely cooled, cut it in half, spread the jam on top of one half and place the other half on top.

11. Make the chocolate glaze and while it cools trim the sides of the cake to make it perfectly rectangular and then cut into 1.5”x1.5” petit fours.

12. Place each petit four on a fork and with a spoon pour a glaze over it. Put the coated petit fours on the parchment lined cookie sheet and let cool in the refrigerator until the glaze is firm.

Afterthoughts

- Thanks, Elissa, for the great challenge. I wanted to make petit fours for a while, and this was a perfect opportunity. I did not make the ice cream though, because I had an overdose in the last months challenge :-). 

- I used a 9”x11” pan and did not realize I needed to half the cake horizontally, so my petit fours turned out quite big (more like grand fours). Next time I will simply use a bigger pan (11”x13” or something similar), because I am really bad at cutting cakes horizontally.

- The cake tastes really good all by itself. I am just wondering if so much butter is needed, and how the browning of butter impacts the taste. Next time I might try using less butter, for calories’ sake.

Blog checking lines The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.