A classic Petit Four is a thing of beauty. I have always been enchanted by the way they look. It makes me feel like I have been transported to the royal court of Marie Antoinette. While things did not go well for her, I guarantee that these charming little squares only have the best fate.
Now I will say upfront that you will have to work a bit to make these beauties come to life. The easy part is the delicious almond sponge – throw all the ingredients into a bowl and beat.
You can buy the marzipan but it is quite simple to make. Once that is sorted out, there is the glazing part which can be a little messy. It will be hard to resist just coating these pretties in one colour so you will have to divide and tint a few portions
There are all these tiny little steps before the finale but these petit fours are worth every little step.
Tips when making Petit Fours
- Make the marzipan before starting with the cake.
- When trimming and cutting the cake make sure it is chilled as this helps with cutting neat squares.
- Before coating the cake with the glace icing, keep squares in the fridge. The cake is very soft and will be difficult to handle at room temperature.
- The light layer of jam acts as a glue for the marzipan.
- When coating the cakes with glace icing, do so with cakes sitting on a wire rack over a baking tray. This way leftover dribbled icing can be caught and used on remaining squares.
- Make sure the icing is set on cakes before adding any decorations. This should take about 20 – 30 minutes.
Marzipan
- 125 g ground almonds
- 105 g caster sugar
- 130 g icing sugar
- about 2 TB of water
- 5ml fresh lemon juice
- 5 ml almond essence
- Measure out the almonds and caster sugar into a mixing bowl.
- Add sifted icing sugar, lemon juice and almond essence.
- First add a tablespoon of water and bring ingredients together to form a ball.
- Add more water if mixture is a little dry.
- Dust flat surface with sifted icing sugar and knead almond mixture into a soft, smooth ball.
- Cover with plastic wrap until use.
Almond Sponge
- 175 g butter
- 175 g caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 150 g self-raising flour
- 30 g ground almonds
- 1 tsp almond essence
- About 5 TB of raspberry or apricot jam to coat surface of cake
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
- Grease and line the bases of 2 x 18 cm square pans or one large roasting pan.
- Measure out all ingredients into a mixing bowl.
- Beat with an electric beater till mixture is smooth, creamy and pale in colour.
- Add to cake pan/s and bake for 25 – 30 minutes till lightly golden and well risen.
- Cool cake/s in pan for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to completely cool.
Lemon Buttercream
- 60 g butter
- 1 1/2 c sifted icing sugar
- zest of half a lemon
- 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
- Beat butter till soft and smooth.
- Add rest of ingredients and beat till light and fluffy.
Glace Icing
- 6 c sifted icing sugar
- About 3-4 TB of warm water
- 2 tsps of fresh lemon juice
- gel food colouring
- Sift icing sugar into a large mixing bowl.
- Add lemon juice and water a TB at a time and mix into a smooth, thick and runny consistency.
- Divide icing into 2 0r 3 bowls and tint with soft colours.
Assemble cake
- If one large cake was baked, cut cake layer into 2 pieces.
- Sandwich cake layers together with a light layer of buttercream.
- Refrigerate cake for half an hour to firm up before adding the marzipan.
- Roll out a tennis ball size of marzipan into a thin layer and cut out a square to fit the surface of the cake.
- Add about 5 TB of raspberry jam into a small bowl and lightly mix till smooth.
- Lightly coat the surface of the cake with the jam and slide the marzipan over the top of the cake.
- Keep cake in fridge while making the glace icing.
- Using a sharp knife trim the sides of the cake so that you have a neat square.
- Cut out 16 equal squares.
- Place cakes on a wire rack and using a teaspoon pour icing over cakes till the surface and most of the sides are coated.
- Leave icing to set – about half an hour.
- Decorate with sugar pearls or little sugar flowers.
