Petit Four
Follow recipe for Cream Sponge Cake. Bake in a shallow pan, cool, and shape, using a small round cutter. Split, and remove a small portion of cake from the centre of each piece. Fill cavities of one-half the pieces with whipped cream sweetened and flavored, cover with remaining pieces, and press firmly together. Nuts or glacé fruits cut in pieces may be added to cream. Melt fondant, color, and flavor to taste. Dip cakes in fondant, decorate tops with pistachio nuts, violets, or glacé cherries, and place each in a paper case.
An assembly recipe rather than a formula: the work is in the cake base, the fondant and the dipping, none of which Farmer spells out here.
- Cream Sponge CakeThe base is a separate recipe given elsewhere in the book. Any firm, close-grained sponge or genoise works; an airy chiffon will collapse under the fondant.
- Shallow panUse a half-sheet or jelly-roll pan so the cake bakes thin, about 3/4 in. The recipe gives neither pan size nor oven heat; a sponge this thin bakes quickly, so watch it rather than the clock.
- Cool completely, then chillCut only when the cake is cold, and preferably after an hour in the refrigerator. Warm sponge tears on the cutter and will not split cleanly.
- The cutter"Small round cutter" means roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 in. — one or two bites. Dip the cutter in hot water and wipe it between cuts for clean edges.
- FondantThis is poured fondant, not the rolled sugar paste sold today. Warm it over hot water to about 100F, no hotter, or it loses its gloss and sets dull and grainy. Thin with a little sugar syrup, never with plain water in quantity.
- DippingSet the cakes on a rack over a tray, spear each on a fork or dipping wire, submerge, and let the surplus run off. Fondant that has run through can be scraped back, rewarmed and reused.
- Whipped cream fillingThe cream filling makes these perishable — keep them refrigerated and eat within a day. For a longer-keeping petit four, buttercream or a thick jam takes the fondant better and will not weep into the crumb.
- VioletsCrystallized violets, still sold by confectionery suppliers. Fresh violets are not what is meant.
Petit four means "small oven" in French, and the usual explanation — traditional rather than documented — is that these tiny cakes were baked in the cooling brick ovens of the pâtisserie after the day's bread and large cakes had come out, at the low, falling heat that suits sugar work. What is striking is the method: Farmer builds hers up from a plain American sponge, a round cutter, and whipped cream — a shortcut that assumes a home cook with no marzipan, no layered ganache, and no patience for a two-day construction, but a steady hand with fondant and a supply of paper cases.