I love petit fours, they are so delicate and pretty, and since they have just been featured on The Great British Bake Off (signature challenge, semi finals) I’ve been keen to try my hand at them! So I did try and continuing with the Bake Off theme, I decided to make mini fondant fancies (technical challenge, final); yeah that was a good plan!
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| The saga of icing these is below! |
I think I may have figured out why fondant fancies are a technical challenge; these were really annoying to ice! I was attempting to balance these on a spoon or a fork and then spoon the icing over them. That didn’t work as the cake kept falling off and landing in the bowl which led to my icing getting filled with cake crumbs! I also tried holding the cake and spooning icing over, that just led to sticky fingers! My hands were covered in icing! Also this icing looks really thick but is deceptively runny, which meant I managed to drip icing onto the floor on more than one occasion!
I think the best way to ice these is to put them on a wire rack and spoon the icing over and place with big plate/tray underneath to catch the icing that drips off. This wasn’t an option for me as I didn’t have a plate big enough! The result of this is that my cakes haven’t been iced very well, but since the icing is green I’m pretending that it’s ectoplasm and therefore meant to look like this! Oh yeah if you want to add sprinkles, let the icing sit on the cake for a bit first, I applied sprinkles soon after icing and they escaped down the side of the cake while the icing flowed!
My cake was also too crumby, so I think a Genoese sponge might work better than a Victoria sponge mix, oh well this was a total experiment which I made up as I went along! And most importantly I had fun trying!
I think the best way to ice these is to put them on a wire rack and spoon the icing over and place with big plate/tray underneath to catch the icing that drips off. This wasn’t an option for me as I didn’t have a plate big enough! The result of this is that my cakes haven’t been iced very well, but since the icing is green I’m pretending that it’s ectoplasm and therefore meant to look like this! Oh yeah if you want to add sprinkles, let the icing sit on the cake for a bit first, I applied sprinkles soon after icing and they escaped down the side of the cake while the icing flowed!
My cake was also too crumby, so I think a Genoese sponge might work better than a Victoria sponge mix, oh well this was a total experiment which I made up as I went along! And most importantly I had fun trying!
I made a chocolate cake for these but feel free to change the cake flavour to whatever you prefer. These would probably look pretty awesome with a Red Velvet Cake as an example. For the icing I used gel food colouring for these as I wanted a really vibrant colour, if you want a more pastel colour I would suggest using the liquid food dyes available in the baking aisle of most supermarkets. Again feel free to change the colour to whatever you prefer if green isn’t your thing!
Cake170g/6oz butter, softened
170g/6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
150g/5oz self rising flour, sifted
20g/1oz coco powder, sifted
170g/6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
150g/5oz self rising flour, sifted
20g/1oz coco powder, sifted
Icing and decorations500g fondant icing sugar
6 tbsp cold water
Green food colouring
Bat and ghost sprinkles
6 tbsp cold water
Green food colouring
Bat and ghost sprinkles
Equipment
8 inch square cake pan, greased and lined
Wire rack
Petit Four sized paper cases
8 inch square cake pan, greased and lined
Wire rack
Petit Four sized paper cases
Method
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4/180 C
Cream together the butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs. Fold in the flour and coco powder then pour into the prepared cake pan. Spread the cake mixture evenly across the tin, try and get the surface as smooth as possible. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
Once the cake has cooled slice it up into small squares, I managed to get 36 squares out of my cake. Cut bigger slices if you don’t want petit fours. To make up the icing sift the icing sugar into a bowl, add the water and mix well. Then add the food colouring and mix until you have a nice even colour. To ice the cakes place on a wire rack with a plate underneath and spoon over the cakes, try not to leave any gaps! Leave for a few minutes then add sprinkles if you want, leave to dry. Then arrange the cakes in paper cases.
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4/180 C
Cream together the butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs. Fold in the flour and coco powder then pour into the prepared cake pan. Spread the cake mixture evenly across the tin, try and get the surface as smooth as possible. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
Once the cake has cooled slice it up into small squares, I managed to get 36 squares out of my cake. Cut bigger slices if you don’t want petit fours. To make up the icing sift the icing sugar into a bowl, add the water and mix well. Then add the food colouring and mix until you have a nice even colour. To ice the cakes place on a wire rack with a plate underneath and spoon over the cakes, try not to leave any gaps! Leave for a few minutes then add sprinkles if you want, leave to dry. Then arrange the cakes in paper cases.
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| Look closely and you can see some escaping sprinkles! |
(Apologies for the fact this recipe has only just been posted, I wrote it a few days ago but unfortuately I lost internet access over the weekend and have only just been able to post it!)
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