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Chrysanthemum

Just in time for Petit Four baking at school and my fast approaching trip to Paris, I bought a new camera. My little old digital camera is dying a slow death, and I have been eying some newer and more powerful models lately. I picked up the new camera on Monday morning so I'd be able to take photos at school this week (and get familiarized with its functions before Paris). So far I am very satisfied with the photo qualities. The vase of Chrysanthemums on my dining room table served as a perfect test subject.

Now about the Petit Fours. I always pictured Petit Fours as small, bite-size squares of cake, coated in fondant and then decorated. I learned this week that the word "Petit Four" actually means: small oven. Also there are about 5 different classifications of Petit Fours, and little cake bites are just one type. Petit Fours can be cookies, macarons, financiers, fruit tarts or cake bites. They are classified by how they are made/what they contain, and of course have to be Petite, or small enough to be consumed in 2/few bites.

Monday's class we made a lot of cookie like Petit Fours, classified as Petit Four Sec. I made Damiers. It's a simple recipe for a divine buttery little cookie. They reminded me of the Danish Butter cookies that come in the tall blue tin that my Grandmother used to have at her house. The Damiers are traditionally sandwiched together with Apricot jam in the middle and dipped half way into melted chocolate. I made a few traditional ones and then branched out filling some with Caramel, strawberry, chocolate, and even pistachio paste.

Damiers & Nantais Sablee Petit Fours

The Nantais Sablee is a similar type of cookie, light and buttery, with the addition of flaked coconut and almond flour. These I striped with melted chocolate, dipped in chocolate and coated with more coconut, or coated with chopped hazelnuts. They would make good sandwich cookies too with a variety of fillings.

Tuesday evening was my most challenging class so far. Having an aching back and tired feet didn't help my cause. We were each assigned 5 recipes to do on our own, along with recipes we had started the night before that needed baking. We were starting on Petit Four Demi Sec....and a lot of it was macarons, French Macarons. The recipes we had to complete were: Madeleines, Raspberry Financiers, Macarons, Coconut Macarons, and Tuilles.

Madeleines

The Tuilles were my downfall. After watching my classmates struggle to remove the incredibly fragile and lace thin cookies from their silpats, I was dreading my turn. I made a bad judgement call and added too much liquid to my batter. My Tuilles spread beautifully and turned caramel colored in the oven, but shattered into pieces when I attempted to gingerly lift them from the silpat. It was getting late, dishes were piling up, macarons needed filling, and my back was screaming; I wanted to hang up my apron and go home. This was a first for me. I scraped my busted Tuilles into the garbage can, took some ibuprofen and thought about how many days like this there is likely to be ahead of me in my new career.

At 2am we finally had all the dishes done (with a big thanks to a very helpful instructor), wiped down our work space, and packed up our Petit Fours. I came home and went straight to bed. I decided today I'm not going to let those Tuilles get the best of me, I will make them at home, and I will make them work.....just not this week.

Pistachio Financiers