Sounds silly but I keep seeing so many different ones. Some are covered in poured fondant, or rolled fondant, and molded chocolate. I'm confused. I had planned on taking some to our MOPS Christmas party but now I am not sure!

Petit fours glace can be covered in poured fondant, royal icing, or melted chocolate. Rolled fondant *could* be done, but it would be very time consuming and a pain in the rear to do.

You can use ganache, too....

At a catering place I worked they made this really yummy thing, not really a petit four but it was a little tiny brownie circle topped with a dollop of peanut butter mousse....then frozen and then dipped in chocolate ganache. Yum!

Basically "Petit Four" means one bite.
They are usually about a 1" cube of cake that has many, many layers - cake, filling, cake, filling etc. then is covered w/a thin icing glaze.
They have transformed into any small 1 or 2 bite cake creation.
They can be one heck of a pain to make!!!!!!! A few have mastered them but most of us give up in disgust

It really depends on what you want to serve - petit fours is literally translated from French to English as 'little ovens.' Most high-end restaurants that include petit fours as a 'complimentary' item consider them a dessert you can pop in your mouth (I worked at a three-Michelin star restaurant in NYC and we served little chocolate cups with praline caramel, pate a choux with lime curd, etc... and served on a small shaped plate).

For occasions, I prefer to make petit fours using a frangipane recipe baked in a half-bun pan, divide into three sections, and stack together with a thin layer of raspberry or apricot preserves. Using a petite four cutter, cut out the individual shapes, and cover with poured fondant and decorate as desired.

The following are samples of our petit fours:

http://www.confectionarydesigns.com/confectionsportfolio.htm (its the third picture on the page; I would also consider the tartlettes on that page as petit fours)

Truthfully, they are nasty, dried out pieces of cake that some one figured out how to get somebody to eat again.

O, Ok, I have issues with the little tiny cakes. I had to eat way too many.

Now that I have that out my system. You actually can make them so people request. Just make sure you love doing really fine RI work.

The point of Petit Four's is their delicate look. The best I have ever seen involves RI work that I will never conquer. Look at Australian RI work.

Yup. There are 2 kinds of petits fours: petits fours sec and petit fours glace*. There is actually a pretty good Wiki article on this topic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petits_fours



*Well, 3 if you include petits fours sales (salty, ie savory, ones) which are really more like amuse bouches.

Blessings

A petit four is a small individual size cake, cookie, pastry (like a mini tart) or confection (individual candies) that you can eat usually in just one or two bites. They are similar to an amuse bouche.

An example of some petit fours that I use to make when I worked in a restaurant in NY is ... Chocolate Cointreau Mousse Cups with a Cranberry Orange Cookie and the other one was White Chocolate Truffles.

A petit four is a 1x1 inch peice of cake that has 3 layers of cake ad at least 2 layers of filling a petir four sec is a tart or other pastry that is one bite. When making the cakes the layers of cake have to be super thin, You can make them in a sheet, freeze before you cut them! then you can dip or pour them with fondant, also you could glaze them then use rolled fondant, this is very pretty as well. to avoid them being dry wrap them in plastic before you cut them, after you cut them, but not after you cover them in fondant

I made some many years ago. I iced them with buttercream (as directed by Wilton) and then poured the fondant on them. Then I decorated them in buttercream. They were beautiful, tasted very moist and were delicious. They were also time consuming!

on martha stewarts site... she did have a very good video on this.. hth