Help With Making Petit Fours. Please Help!!!!!!
Decorating By Ito Updated 30 May 2007 , 9:41pm by yellobutterfly
I have a friend who wants me to make about 100 petit fours for the grand opening of her hair dressing salon, for the first week of June.
This will be my first time doing something like this, can anyone please give me some advise about how to go about getting this done?
She wants to pay me about $1.00 for a petit four. Is that reasonable?
Also are there any helpful tips that you might have that will help me through this process.
Please advise.
Thank you
Ito. 
$1.00 is probably reasonable, especially since it is your first time making them. When I do mine, I freeze the cake, which I bake in a jelly roll pan. I then cut squares from the frozen cake, less crumbs, easier to cut when frozen. I also use poured fondant on them and do this when the cakes are still frozen. I have a pan on the stove, on low, and place a square of cake on a fork over the pan. I take a ladle or spoon and spoon the fondant on the square until it is covered.
Hope this helps!
Julie
Thank you so much. I really appreciate your help. I will make some samples at first and see how it turns out.
She wants the petit fours in the form of Strawberry cake and Italian Cream cake. These would have fillings in them.
1. What are your thoughts on the filling and frosting the fours if she does not want poured fondant on the cakes?
2. Will it be applicable to frost and fill the frozen petit fours? If so what would be a better way to do it?
3. Also why do you place a pan over the stove? What purpose does it serve? I have never used Poured Fondant before so I am not sure how the process works.
4. What brand of Poured fondant is preferred or tastes better to most people?
Thank you once again.
Ito.
If you are asking about individually icing a petit four you will be pulling your hair out after about 20 of them. Petit fours are time consuming. You can use poured chocolate also on them. If you are making italian creme, that is more expensive then plain cake. Use a dense cake, or pound cake, the crumbs are not as bad. I bake mine in a jelly roll pan also, you do not want the little cakes real tall. I brush the cake first with a glaze, then put a layer of butter cream on it. I then freeze the cake. Once it is frozen I cut them in 2x2 squares. You can use cutters to make different shapes, or cut them on a diagonal. You will get a cleaner cut by cutting them frozen. I use a poured icing. Let them set at least a day once this is done to let them dry. Use a cooling rack to glaze them with a pan underneath to catch the excess icing, you can reuse the icing. It helps if the icing is slightly warm, it will flow better. Some people will put the icing in a bag with a tip 10 or so, instead of straight pouring and using a spoon. Everyone has there own way but after making tons, I still do not like making them. If you go with the more expensive cake, I would charge more then a $1 per piece. There are some instructions in the Wilton yearbook and some recipes.
Thank you sooooooooooooo much Cupcake. Your response has been very detailed and has answered most of the questions I have. I will put it to the test and hope everything turns out great.
I will let you know how everything turns out.
Thank you once again.
P.S.
Is there a certain brand of Poured fondant you could recommend, please?
I just use the Wilton recipe. I keep the pan over the stove on low heat to keep the fondant warm and more pourable!
What an awesome idea! I need to try these soon myself! 
I made petit fours for a tea party for my daughter a few months ago... It was VERY time consuming. I hadn't heard about the freezing the cake idea but that probably would have made it a lot easier to cut. I just did chocolate and vanilla cake, no layer/filling. Covered it with a poured fondant by putting a bunch on a wire rack and a pan under to catch the drips. Then before it had fully dried I put little royal icing drop flowers on the top of each one. It was my first time so they were far from perfect, but everyone liked them.
If I had to make them for sale I probably would charge $1 each for just the simple way I did them. If I had to do layers I probably would charge more because that would mean they were even more time consuming and difficult to make.
Good luck!
The recipe in Wiltons book is fine. There is also a product that is called Sno-Top Roll, which is normally found through Bakery suppliers, it can be heated and poured on little cakes. As I mentioned you can use the Wilton candy melts also. The poured cookie icing would probably work, although I have not tried it. Keeping the icing slightly warm will help with any of these. The reason for the denser cake is the crumb factor, once you start pouring the icing the crumbs have a tendancy to fall into icing that you may want to reuse. Some people will put the cakes on a fork and dip, but I have found it easier to just keep cake on screen and pour, using a spoon or small spat to smooth the icing in the places it misses. You could also use ganache, it makes some yummy cakes. Good Luck.
Thank you cupcake. You have been very helpful. I spoke to my friend yesterday and she stated that she wanted 200 petit fours for her party.
And she wants a yellow cake with butter cream frosting or filling and a caramel or chocolate cake.
She also stated that she wanted an Italian cream cake, but I talked her out of it.
This will be my first time making petit fours so I will make some samples this weekend by following all the advise I have received from all of you, and see how it turns out.
Cupcake, do you think the chocolate cake should be a dense cake as well, and if so, would a chocolate pound cake work. Most of the recipes I have for chocolate cakes are lighter and more moist.
Thank you once again.
In a class I took years ago we covered them in chocolate well actually a summer coating like the wilton wafers not real chocolate.... the stuff in the store that says for almond bark works great... add a T or 2 af crisco to keep it softer after setting and dip the frozen cakes pouring gets less curms but there is a lot of waste because once it gets crumbs you have to make a fresh batch.
I use a dense cake whether white or chocolate It doesn't have to be a pound cake but one that is too tender doesn't work as well for me. I've never tried them out of Italian Cream but might give it a try someday.
Angela
I did 200 petit fours for the high school prom in my town. They are very time consuming. I used a white cake, froze, then took out and covered top in glaze and buttercream, put back in the freezer, the next day I made my poured fondant and I put it in a squirt bottle and covered the petit fours that way......much much easier and it goes quicker too.....if the icing starts to get to thick just nuke it in the microwave for a few seconds, scoop what drips off right into the bottle and microwave until thin and go again.....I tried many times the dipping way and pouring the icing over them......never again, I will always use the squirt bottle from now on....amazing...you can get the icing right where you want it to go (I always had a hard time with it covering the sides good), no problem now.
Sheila - when you did your petit fours did you use one of those squirt bottles from wilton? (If not, what type/brand?) Thanks!
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%