Petit fours are such a tease! They're dessert "four(s)-play", if you will. And served in a line on silver platters you can't help but treat them like cocaine. Give me more!
So I liked this unit a lot. Not just because I got to work with Janet (or Janae, as the cheese-eating surrender-monkey French would say - holler girl!) but because they're just so goddamn cute! AWWWWW! Little-wittle desserts...
Janae and my first platter was composed of (from left/top to right/bottom) these little raisin cookies that I thought were gross and old-timey that I couldn't stop eating nonetheless; Financiers (w/ mango!)... tasty!; pate sucree with passionfruit curd and a blueberry; Sarah Bernhart's boobies - almond macaroon with whipped ganache and choc glaze. I was a fan of most of these things.
Next tray. I actually didn't like most of these. It was composed of desserts that just weren't quite cutting it for me. The French seem to like their good shit all muddled up with bad shit. Making a caramel? Put some chocolate in it to make some combination of muddled choco-caramelyness that's not good as either. Making a cake? Put as much fucking buttercream and filling on it that it makes you want to vomit it all up (but still eat it the first time around because it tastes good until you feel your stomach rapidly sinking into your small intestine). Nice lemon cookies? Dip them in chocolate for a totally unnecessary citrus chocolate combination WHICH I HATE. So here goes from left/bottom to right/top: Some thing with cake on the bottom, 3 different types of buttercream (Janae and I chose hazelnut, vanilla, and raspberry - but through no fault of our own this still just tasted like a shitload of flavored buttercream on a wafer); lemon and raspberry sandwich cookies dipped in chocolate; caramel mou - caramel with chocolate and rolled in cocoa powder; a cake thing made with raspberry jam, marzipan, and a fondant glaze; and another thin layer of cake thing with a mound of buttercream "enrobed" in chocolate. Good grief this tray looked like it stepped out of the 80s!
Mmmm.... how pleasant... Macaroons! From left to right: Gerbert macaroons with a raspberry filling; lemon Madelines; some gross shit I don't remember the name of made with peanut butter puff pastry, royal icing, and raspberry jam; chocolate macaroons with chocolate ganache; more Madelines; Opera cake - really good - hazelnut and chocolate together is my jam!
From top/left to bottom/right: Pineapple pate de fruits "tropical!"; Nougat; almond tuiles; sablee chocolate and vanilla swirl cookies - not too much going on, but pleasant; Russian tea cakes - always good; Florentines - not my jam but a respectable addition to the party. The sophisticate uncle from Italy, if you will.
Ahhh... Janae and my opus to the art of petit fours. Our Sistine Chapel amongst the punk-ass Basquiat wannabes. Our very own "little ovens", we birthed these babes from our combined creative juices. Yes, that's right, Janae and I made them. I present to you our final exam. Together we made 7 - we had to collaborate on 1 freestyle petit four, and separately freestyle on 1 other, and then adapt a recipe from the unit for 2 more. They are as follows, from left to right:
(Our combined freestyle) A black sesame seed pound cake with passionfruit curd, white chocolate glaze and toasted black sesame seeds.
(My adaptation) Pistachio Russian tea cake.
(My adaptation) Kaffir lime mousse sandwich, biscuit d'Amandes w/ pate a cornet design, candied orange.
(Janae's freestyle) Mini banana cream pie with painted choc crust and caramelized banana
(Janae's adaptation) Lemon Madeline
(Janae's adaptation) Green tea checkerboard sablee
(My adaptation) Sarah Bernhart with almond macaroon, earl grey and honey ganache, chocolate glaze and candied lavender.
B-b-b-b-b-b-bomb baby.
It was so good I had to post all 3 pictures that Janae sent me.
This post is mostly a way to scare off my grandmother from reading my blog. I thought she didn't know how to turn on her computer, despite my mother and I showing her multiple times. However she does, and uses the interwebs, and locates this blog and reads it. Grandma, if you're still reading this, then you can withstand more than I thought, and you're even cooler than I thought you already were. Sex, drugs and rock and roll GRAM$! And computers!
Did you get enough shout-outs Janae?
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