Life Skills - Day 22

How to Make Petit Fours

I told you this was going to be a crazy baking extravaganza :) This undertaking was no small matter . . . it basically took all day. There were so many steps to figure out and try and find the best recipes and methods for, whew, it's 11 pm and I'm not even done yet. I'll try and walk you through what I did. First of all, these are the two primary sources that I used: Bakerella Petit Fours and Vegan Yum Yum Petit Fours. They both had tons of helpful pictures, but I couldn't choose one over the other so I did what I usually do and picked some things from each and added my own . . . this is the cake that I used: Aunt Johnnie's Pound Cake, but with 1 tsp. almond extract and 1 tsp. vanilla because I didn't want the almond flavor to be too strong. So the cake turned out really well, and slicing was an interesting adventure that was pretty successful (see the following pictures), even the marzipan worked out well, but I'm pretty sure the poured fondant was a complete failure.

13" x 9" pound cake recipe . . . I baked it at 340 F for about 35 minutes I think.

Making marzipan . . . the most successful part of this project. I used this recipe:  Marzipan, I guess it's not too difficult to mix some sugar into almond paste though.

More marzipan 

Cake slicing with toothpicks and dental floss :) 

Filling with strawberry jam

Top coated with rolled marzipan

The prettiest the cakes looked all day . . . I should have stopped here.

The poured fondant took quite a while to make (I used the Vegan Yum Yum recipe), and perhaps I heated it a few degrees too high (242 F instead of 238), but it was so thick and I had to microwave it for ~30 seconds between cakes and then it was so hot I kept burning my fingers . . . altogether not a pleasant experience. Finally I made a little simmering pan of water to put it in to keep it warm which helped a little, and then I added a bit of water, but by that time there was not very much left and it was pretty much a lost cause. So I have a few decent ones, even more really ugly ones, some that are coated with the dregs of the frosting that for some reason turned a bit yellow, they look more even, but the coating is not thick enough, and then a plethora of uncoated ones left over. I don't think I'll have time to try the fondant again before Christmas (these were supposed to be Christmas presents), so it is cake-frosting-failure number 2 for the day . . . what is happening to me? I think it's time for bed now . . . hopefully my baking tomorrow works out much better. 

Sadly, these are the best ones. I was planning on decorating the top, but I just don't have the heart tonight. Plus, I have to be at church in 6 hours . . . ugh. 

The later attempts . . . see, yellow. 

What a miserable mess.

p.s. If you need a half batch a marzipan in the next few days, let me know . . . I have some for you ;)