I have made all sorts of baked good over the years. So I decided to try making petit fours. I did a little research and found that there are only 4 components needed:
- Cake base
- Simple syrup
- Filling
- Icing
The cake base needs to be a solid fine grained cake. Pound cake or sponge cakes are suggested to make the best. I went and made both types of cake and found that the pound cake is better able to absorb the different syrups and fillings without crumbling. Also the pound cake is more versatile and you can easily modify any base cake you choose.
The syrup is brushed on the cake base to keep it from drying out. This is also another place where you can enhance the flavor of your cake.
The fillings can be anything you can think of. I found the easiest filling to use is a basic butter cream icing. You can add any flavor and color you like. Another filling that works well are any fruit jam/preserves. I tried orange marmalade and ran it through a food processor to make it nice and creamy.
The icing I found to work best is the royal icing, This icing can be easily adjusted to get the consistency you like to work with. The only drawback I had was it ended up with a matt finish. A glossy finish can be made by adding light corn syrup but this will increase the drying time.
Once that I have all these little cakes made the only problem is they will only be good for a few days because of all the sugars and fillings. So I placed them in an air tight container with parchment paper between the layers and put them in the freezer. After a few days I pulled a couple of them out and let them thaw. They are just as good as the day I made them.
What I will do next is during the holidays I will place them in little decorative baking cups and place in tins and give to friends.
I found it easier to make the pound cake in a loaf pan and slice it like bread. I have tried several pound cake recipes and liked the chocolate one then I made a couple of changes to recipe by adding rum to the cake as the flavoring and replacing 1/2 the milk with Bailey’s Irish Cream. Below is the recipe and instructions.
Chocolate Pound Cake
1½ cup Butter at room temperature 3 cups Flour
3 cups Granulated Sugar ½ teaspoon baking powder
5 large Eggs at room temperature ½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Rum or Rum extract 5 tablespoons Hershey’s Unsweetened Cocoa
1 cup Milk or ½ cup Milk and ½ cup Bailey’s Irish Cream
Preheat oven 325°F.
Prepare 2 – 9″x5″ Loaf Pans: Spray with non-stick spray, line with parchment paper, spray liner with non-stick spray .
Beat butter then add sugar, mix until homogenous. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add rum and mix until homogenous.
In a separate large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa and mix by hand. Alternating between dry ingredients and milk, add to creamed mixture and mix until homogenous, scraping side of bowl as needed.
Pour ½ batter into each loaf pan (approximately 2 lbs.) then bake 80-90 minutes or until center springs back when lightly touched.
Cool on wire rack 10 minutes then remove cake from pans and allow to cool completely.
While the cakes are cooling I made up the syrup, fillings, and icings then kept them in air tight containers until ready to use.
Simple Amaretto Syrup
1 cup water 1 cup Granulated Sugar ½ cup Amaretto Liqueur
Combine water and sugar, bring to boiling and boil 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool 5 minutes, stir in the Amaretto.
Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting
Here I replaced the milk with Bailey’s Irish Cream and instead of vanilla I used Triple Sec
6 tablespoons Butter at room temperature ⅓ cup Bailey’s Irish Cream
2⅔ cups Powdered Sugar 1½ teaspoons Orange Extract or Liqueur
½ cup Hershey’s Unsweetened Cocoa
Beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and cocoa, mix until homogenous. Slowly add Bailey’s scraping bowl as needed. Add orange extract and beat until light and fluffy.
I also made a vanilla butter cream frosting and replaced the vanilla with Amaretto
As my 3rd filling option I pureed orange marmalade
Chocolate Royal Icing
2 lbs Confectioner’s Sugar 1 tablespoon Orange Liqueur or Extract
½ cup Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa ¾ cup water
½ cup Meringue Powder Light Corn syrup as needed
Combine sugar, cocoa and meringue powder, mix on low. Add ½ cup water and orange flavoring, mix until smooth. Add remaining water and mix on high until light and fluffy, approximately 3 minutes.
To make icing glossy and adjust consistency, add light corn syrup and mix by hand. Consistency should be like molasses.
Another option for icing is to use melted dipping chocolates. They will dry much faster but you will need to keep the chocolate warm while working with it. Whith the chocolate you can also add your different flavors and liquors
Assembly Instructions:
Cut Chocolate Pound Cake into ½ inch slices, 2 slices are used for each assembly. Do not use the ends to make petit fours. They are great for sampling different fillings though.
To keep Petit Fours moist, brush the inside faces of the pound cake slices liberally with the Amaretto Syrup.
On the bottom slice, evenly spread about ¼ inch of chocolate frosting (or your choice of filling) then cover with top slice keeping the syrup coated side together. Repeat until all chocolate sandwiches are made.
Amaretto Butter Cream Filling
Bailey’s and Triple Sec Chocolate Filling
Orange Marmalade Preserves
Top Layer Assembled
Cut sandwiches into 6 squares. Cover each square with Dark Chocolate Royal Icing completely and place on a wire rack to dry/harden for several hours or overnight.
You can also use small cookie cutters for special shapes
Using a small wire rack over your icing bowl to allow excess icing to be easily reused
Transfer to a large wire rack for drying
While icing is still tacky you can add sprinkles or decorations of your choice.
If the icing hardens before adding decorations you can always add a drop or two of icing on top as glue
Try to make each decoration unique to help identify the filling
How to Make Petit Fours 
