Day Sixty Five : Petits Fours II

After my petits fours disaster, I've been searching for a fool-proof recipe.  One that looks as pretty as it tastes.  I'm not giving up.


:insert the theme from Rocky:


(Don't worry.  I'm not going to start shadowboxing or anything.)

For the record, I was trying to make petits fours that looked like Martha's:

Or like the petits fours found at my local bakery (for which I now have profound respect):

 My first attempt turned out like this:

In case your observation skills are lacking, I will state the obvious:  my attempt was a spectacular failure.  Sure, my book club kindly ate these sad-excuses-for-dessert and said very nice things about them, but I could tell they were just humoring me.  (Thanks, ladies)

I found another recipe in Martha's Baking Handbook p. 192.  The icing on these petits fours is not icing.  It's melted chocolate.  You melt it, pour it flat onto a cookie sheet, let it harden, then cut out the shapes.  No gooey slime-covered dessert!  They look perfect!  I can melt chocolate, no problem.  I'm also handy with a cookie cutter.  What can possibly go wrong?

My lovely petits fours batter fresh from the oven:

Batter cut into little cakes:

Chocolate melted and laid onto cooking sheet to harden:

At this point, the chocolate topping hardened to something akin to concrete.  I'm considering contacting the Department of Transportation to tell them about my discovery.  White-chocolate-filled potholes are in your future.

This is no problem, though.  The directions say you can just re-heat the chocolate if you want to re-use. I'll need to start again.

Note to self:  When Martha says, "Put chocolate in heat-proof bowl over BUT NOT TOUCHING simmering water", don't let the bowl touch the water.

:bangsheadagainstwall:

My second attempt at the frosting turned out like this:

It looked like pink gravel.

The chocolate was so dang hard I could hardly chisel it out of the bowl.  I very nearly just threw the whole thing away, bowl and all.

In the end, my lovely cut-out petits fours turned out ok, even without any of the fancy, chocolate cut-out topping:

They are a vast improvement from the Petits Four Part I.  Who said sequels are never as good as the original?  But I will try again...just as soon as I finish chiseling this chocolate out of its bowl.