Well that's about 4 hours of my life down the drain and a whole bunch of $$$ in the form of crappy falling apart bits of cake and icing in the trash. Fortunately, this wasn't for an order. We have a funeral reception at church (the mother of one of my friends died Sunday) and I was trying to do something special. Good thing no one knows what I was trying to make! Only thing now is, I don't really have time to do something else.

And no, they are not salvadgeable.

I'm gonna be in one p!ssy mood for the rest of the day.

at least you were trying to do something nice for someone and that is what God knows doing or try doing something for someone is a blessing. I love you for that.

What about cake balls? Turn your scraps into cake balls.

I know how hard it is to get very nice looking petit fours! They are not something I like to do either.
Yes, cake balls are easier and can look almost as nice.

What happened to them? Why did they not turn out?

Yep, I declined a request for those yesterday too...no thanks!

- been there, done that. From this forum I thought it was just me. Let's not give up. We'll both try again later.

I was reading about making petit fours with a special mold. You coat the inside of the mold with chocolate, stick the cake pieces in, and then cover the bottoms with more chocolate, and then pop them out of the mold. That would be faster than the way I've done them, covering with rolled fondant.

Still, I'm not making them for anyone either. My sister keeps hinting that she wants some more but she can keep on hinting. Those little bitty bits of cake drive me nuts. And then for the hours they take to make, watching her cram them in her mouth like little debbie cakes isn't any fun either.

I don't like the taste of the hard chocolate on the cake. I was doing the quick poured fondant. We ate a few before I trashed them. They tasted yummy. Too bad they look so bad.

They really just aren't cost effective with the amount of labor you have to put into them.

I'll stick to mini cupcakes. They're easy.

join the club...we need t shirts.

Oooooooh, I HATE petit fours!

I charge $684948204957239 per petit four. I'd be happy to make some for you.

I've tried petit fours once; that was 2 years ago!! It was a disaster!! For those who can make them; God bless you, you have a wonderful gift!!

(what Leah said!) I HATE doing those little buggars, I know newbies think I am nuts when I tell them to charge an arm and a leg for them.......(but then they try to make them and KNOW what I mean!!)

Okay - don't throw cake balls at me -- and trust me when I say this "I have very little patience - period!" But I really don't mind making petit fours at all - I can whip out four dozen in a little over an hour. I have an order for those 4 dozen for this weekend - I'll make the little flowers for them tonight and just pop them on while the icing is still damp.

You have to work with frozen cake and work quickly. And with the poured fondant you are not going to cover every bit of the cake - if you start trying to do that - then you are screwed and will end up with 'crumby' icing. I put them in the mini cupcake liners to look nice and my customers love them!

I'm sorry they didn't work out for you - and especially since you were wanting them for such a sincere occasion.

Suze

I was at the local cake dec. store the other day and they had just had classes for petit fours using chocolate and Oreo molds (although I believe any mold witll do).

Haven't had a chance to try them quite yet but they looked interesting. Aparently you coat inside of mold. cut discs of cake with slighly smaller cutter, layer cake and filling inside mold, top of with chocolate and once it's set, invert and viola - a chocolate petit four-ish type treat.

Pourable fondant seems intimidating (not sure why...maybe I am just lazy) but I also read that you can microwave a crusting icing recipe and get a similar texture.

oops, didn't read prevous posts...looks like the chocolate thing was already suggested!

What type of cake works best? Box mix, pound cake? just wondering.

btw, I tried microwaving a crusting bc before to pour, Yuck! didn't work for me, but it was shortening based, not butter based recipe. Perhaps that is why.

Win - when I started testing recipes 4 years ago at the beginning of my cake decorating venture - I would take test samples to friends, meetings, bunco group, to the kitchen committee members of my Church, etc to taste and give me their opinion. While I was raised that petit fours must have a layer fruit filling on top - noone and I mean noone liked it. They all wanted (& still want) just cake and icing. I do put a thick layer of buttercream on top of the cake and freeze along with it and that helps 'cover' the top of the cake with the poured fondant.

As far as cake goes - after all the testing - the hands down winner was the BettyC pound cake mix with milk (not water) and almond flavoring. It bakes easy, freezes easy and cuts like a dream.

My poured fondant recipe is here on CC - if you can find it in the recipe section .

Suze

Okay, well that answers one thing then. The first two dozen did rather well cause they were still cold from being in the fridge all night. It was the 2nd batch that started falling apart on me. And then I made the mistake of trying to "touch up" the first batch.

suzycakes do you glaze them in the little wrappers or glaze them and then put them in the wrappers? A lot of mine would fall over after I tried to put them back on the cooling rack (was doing the ladle the coating on the petit four whilst holding the little bugger over the pot of coating on a fork and then transfering back to the rack using a 2nd fork). Of course then the ones that fell over looked a mess.

prterrell....I took a petit four class a while back and I can tell you this...the cooling rack makes a difference too!! U want to get the ones that have small (tight) holes in them, so that way the cakes are less likely to 'fall over' once you have glazed them and they are drying. After my class, I made a trial batch and I didn't have much success due to not having the correct cooling racks...but they were yummy!

And I agree with suzycakes...you MUST use FROZEN cake...much, much better!!

Good Luck and now y'all got me thinking about trying another batch!! We'll see!

I'm sorry I haven't checked the thread -- was working on 3 cakes last night!

I glaze them on the rack - the rack that makes the little squares - and I put the glaze in a 32oz styrofoam cup and then making a little 'spout' with the cup I go around the sides of the cake first then I pour a small amount on top. I try to check each cake as I ice - because like I said - you don't want to go back and touch them up. Then when I finish the first rack I place the decoration on top. So by the time I finish the 2nd rack - the 1st rack is usually dry enough for me to use an offset spatula to pick them up and place them in the mini-cups.

But the cake must be frozen with the buttercream on top and frozen too. I start the poured fondant in the double boiler setup before I remove the cake from the freezer, then slice with a ruler and a bread knife and then I set the squares on the racks, by then the glaze is ready to pour.

Suze

If you spray your racks with "PAM" first, they come off much easier too. (the icing doesn't stick as much to the rack)

I still hate them.

I've always wanted to try petit fours. How exactly do you pour the icing on the sides, do you tip the rack the cakes are on?