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Petits Fours
4 eggs 1 cup sugar 3 tablespoons cold water 1 1/2 tablespoon corn-starch 1 cup flour 1 1/2 teaspoon baking-powder 1/4 teaspoon salt Flavoring To the beaten yolks of the eggs, add sugar and cold water. Sift the corn-starch with the flour, baking-powder and salt. Add to first mixture. Beat well and add the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs and any flavoring desired. Bake for one-half hour in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) in shallow pans. When cool, cut in small circles, split, scoop out a little of the crum from the center of each and fill cavities with whipped cream or any prepared filling. Press together in pairs, dip in melted fondant, decorate with nuts, glace fruits, and so forth, and place each little cake in a paper case.
A plain hot-water sponge baked in a sheet, then cut, filled and enrobed in fondant. The batter is simple; the assembly is where the time goes.
- OvenThe stated moderate oven of 350F is right for a sheet sponge, but half an hour is aimed at a thick layer. In a shallow pan of about 1/2 to 3/4 inch of batter, start checking at 15 to 18 minutes; the top should spring back and the edges just pull from the pan.
- Shallow pansThis is a small quantity of batter for a half-sheet pan (13 by 18 inches): spread that thin it would bake in well under the stated time and be too shallow to split and scoop. A quarter-sheet, or a single 9-inch square pan, gives a layer closer to the 1/2 to 3/4 inch this method wants.
- The hinge is the whitesApart from the fat in the yolks there is no added fat, and no liquid beyond three tablespoons of water, so the lift depends on the beaten whites and the baking powder. Fold the whites in by hand in two or three additions and stop the moment no streaks remain; beating them in, as a literal reading of "beat well" might suggest, collapses the cake.
- CornstarchThe 1 1/2 tablespoons of cornstarch sifted with the flour lowers the protein and softens the crumb, the same trick as substituting cake flour. If you use cake flour, keep the cornstarch anyway; the cake is meant to be tender enough to scoop.
- Chill before cuttingA warm sponge tears under a cutter. Cool completely, then refrigerate or briefly freeze the sheet before stamping circles with a 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inch cutter, which gives the cleanest edges and the least waste.
- Fondant"Melted fondant" means poured fondant, warmed over hot water to about 100 to 105F and thinned with a little sugar syrup until it ribbons. Above roughly 110F it loses its gloss and dries dull. Rolled fondant sold for covering cakes is a different product and will not pour.
- Whipped cream fillingCream-filled petits fours must be kept refrigerated and eaten the same day, and the cold filling will sweat under the fondant. Buttercream, jam or ganache holds up far better if the cakes are to sit out on a table.
- YieldThe recipe splits each round and presses the two halves back together, so one round makes one finished cake rather than two. Stamped with a 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inch cutter, a sheet of this size gives several dozen, depending on how much is wasted between cuts. Paper cases are the small fluted petit-four cups, about 1 inch across.