- If you've ever wanted to make a classic,
dainty petit four but were too intimidated to try,
then today's video is for you.
And if you like this video,
don't forget to hit that like button and subscribe.
You're watching "Preppy Kitchen," where I, John Kanell,
teach you how to make delicious,
homemade dishes to share with your family and friends.
These petit four will be ready before you know it.
So let's get started.
First off, preheat your oven to 350,
and line a 12 by 17 inch baking sheet with parchment paper.
Our cake is in gonna bake in this
and you want it to release super easily.
So parchment paper is a must.
For the cake, I'm measuring out three cups, or 360 grams,
of all purpose flour,
one and a quarter teaspoons of baking powder,
and half a teaspoon of salt.
Give it a quick whisk and set aside.
The cake for these petit four is the most,
just delicious cake,
but we're gonna add a special ingredient,
eight ounces of cream cheese.
This will give our cake a wonderful bit of tang,
but also a body,
because we have to cut this into tiny little squares,
and it can't be a blow-away, super fluffy cake.
To my stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment,
I'm adding one and a half cups of unsalted butter.
That's 339 grams.
And it should be room temperature.
We're gonna cream the eight ounces of cream cheese
with the butter.
It'll get really nice and smooth,
so do not skimp on this initial creaming time
before we add the sugar.
You want it to be really well mixed in
with no little nodules of butter
or cream cheese hanging around.
So right now it looks great.
For me, but for you, you see a lot of white streaks,
I'm assuming, so we're gonna scrape the bowl down.
One more mix and then we're gonna add the sugar.
(mixer squeals)
Now we're gonna add two cups, or 400 grams,
of granulated sugar.
Two and a quarter cups, hello.
Mix on high for about two minutes.
This looks like light, fluffy, beautiful clouds right now.
I wanna show you.
Look at that.
That is a light, fluffy, beautiful mixture.
Best practice, which I'm following today,
is to crack five eggs into a bowl, no shells.
No shells at all for you.
We're gonna add these eggs,
along with two teaspoons of vanilla, in one at a time,
mixing on high.
And we will scrape the bowl down
because it's gonna be eggy and amazing on the inside
and just butter, sugar on the outside.
Two teaspoons of vanilla.
You have to see this.
Yellow on the inside of white on the outside.
Just like I said, scrape the bowl down.
At this point, your mixture might look a little broken.
You'll see nodules of butter in a matrix of eggs.
Don't worry about that.
We're gonna keep mixing
and as we add the flour, it'll all come right.
Mix, mix, mix.
A little mixing later,
the egg mixture has come together more.
I'm gonna start adding the dry ingredients,
along with a cup of milk, half a cup of milk,
half a cup of milk,
and adding the flour and half a cup of milk
in three alternating batches,
just like you would for a normal cake,
but we're gonna mix on the low, actually the lowest setting,
and repeat.
Last of the flour and the last of the milk.
I'm gonna stop this right now and it's not combined yet.
We're gonna finish this off by hand.
The main complaint I get from people making cakes at home
is that their batter is over mixed
and the cakes is kind of tough and gluey
and not as fluffy and melt in your mouth.
Now we can pour this out onto our prepared pan
and bake it up.
Get all that better onto this baking sheet.
Spread this cake batter out
because it needs to be pretty level
before it goes into the oven.
So to get it all the way into all the corners.
Your petit fours should be about an inch cube.
Mine are an inch and a quarter.
Some up to an inch and a half, that's a little a big.
So you wanna make sure that this is gonna be really even,
and get all those big bubbles out.
'Cause big bubbles will mean you have voids
in your petit four and that's not okay.
Nice and smooth.
I'm gonna give this a couple well taps
to work out any bubbles.
And now this goes into the oven, 350 for about 26 minutes.
That's how much it is on my oven,
but check to make sure that it's bouncy to the touch
and listen to the cake.
Just put your ear to it like this.
If you hear a lot of crackling,
it needs to go back for an extra minute.
It should be fairly quiet.
Listen to your cakes.
My cake is out of the oven and we're about to cut it.
But before that let's make our fillings.
This smells so good.
You've got to make this cake recipe.
When you make petit fours, the world is your oyster.
You could fill them with anything.
Today I'm using a simple vanilla buttercream.
A lot of petit fours have royal icing decorations.
I'm gonna make mine from buttercream
because it tastes better.
So I'm making a little bit of extra buttercream today.
Meaning I want one full cup of butter.
We're gonna give this a good cream.
Once that butter's nice and creamy,
we're gonna add about four cups of powdered sugar.
Start off with two cups, add the rest as you go.
You do not want a massive sugar cloud in your face.
Not today.
As this mixes up, I'm gonna add a few tablespoons of cream.
You could also use milk if preferred.
Quarter teaspoon of salt,
about two teaspoons of vanilla.
We're gonna add the rest of the cream right now,
about two more tablespoons.
Mix on high for about three minutes.
Scrape that bowl down and mix, mix, mix.
My buttercream is done so let's assemble these petit four.
Get a wire rack.
Flip the cake over.
We're gonna use this in the next step,
so don't put your baking sheet away yet.
Remove the paper.
This smells so good.
In a lot of recipes you'll see this, cut it in half,
and flip it over and they'll bake these in multiple sheets
so the cake is thinner,
but when you do that you don't get the maximum absorption
of the filling into the cake.
So I like to just cut it, it's better.
Do not trim the cake yet.
We're gonna trim this after it is assembled.
So right now we can just leave this as is.
I'm gonna cut this in,
gonna cut this in half, but exactly.
Virgo feelings.
Cut your cake in half.
I'm using a nice, sharp, serrated knife.
And we're gonna cut this in half, one more time,
just so it's manageable.
You could leave it as is,
or even have one mega cake if you want.
But that's really reserved for the people who have
the cake cutting knives.
I don't have one for some reason.
Cut your cake in half carefully
and just eyeball it.
All right.
Once your cake's cut up, we're gonna make a cake sandwich.
I'm using a cookie scoop to get some frosting
onto this cake.
I don't want to rip it.
Once you have some good coverage,
use a little spatula or a knife and just smooth it out.
Repeat that process on the other side
with your other filling.
In this case, it's that raspberry jam,
but it could be lemon curd, marzipan, another type of jam,
anything you'd like.
Now I'm using an offset spatula
just to help me flip this over.
Like that.
Press it down a little bit just so has really good contact.
Give it a little bit of a wrap,
and let it hang out in the freezer for maybe 20 minutes
or so while we make our pouring fondant,
or you could even do this overnight
or a couple days ahead and just cut these
and make them later on.
My sandwiches are all frozen up.
And in the meantime, I marked a piece of paper,
this is actually plastic,
but at 1.25 inch intervals so I can cut really easily.
I don't wanna have to have my measuring tape out
like last time.
Virgo feelings.
We're gonna begin by trimming our pieces up
because the edges are super unclean and messy,
and you can see how beautifully this cuts when it's frozen.
You don't want to have soft cake or soft filling
when you do this part.
Now begin by adding little tiny marks.
You can use a knife or whatever you want,
just so you know where to cut.
Mark it on both sides.
And this will be your guide.
Right now I can already hear the comments.
You're like, "Right, right, right, that's a lot of work."
It is a little bit of finicky work, but here's the deal,
you don't have to make a hundred petit four.
You could make one block of this,
freeze the rest for another time, it freezes for months,
and then make them later,
or just enjoy a delicious cake sandwich.
That's all they are.
Let me tell you a little secret.
These guys look perfect right now,
and they really are very nice cubes,
but if they get too warm before the fondant goes on,
they might start slipping and sliding.
So we're gonna put these back into the freezer
while we make our topping.
And they're gonna be in a perfect grid too.
So just throw these onto a wire rack
that's over a baking sheet.
This will be the setup for later,
so you're just saving herself a step later on.
These guys and the rest of the cut ones
are gonna go into the freezer,
and then we're gonna make our white chocolate,
pourable fondant.
We're gonna give this chocolate a good chop.
Try and get fine pieces.
And in the meantime, I have some water set to simmer
over a small pot.
In a small pot.
This can go into a small bowl,
and we're gonna melt that over the simmering water
with steamed heat.
I don't recommend using a microwave to melt white chocolate
because it will burn and you'll be sad.
I'm gonna sift out three and a half cups
of powdered sugar right now.
It's about 420 grams.
This is gonna be the fondant, kind of like the base,
so you don't want any lumps in here,
because fondant should have a nice, smooth,
glossy finish.
Stir the chocolate occasionally just so it melts evenly.
Into my sifted sugar I'm adding a third of a cup
of hot water fresh out of the microwave.
We're gonna pour that in and then at the corn syrup.
Now I need that one quarter cup of corn syrup.
This'll hold it together and give me a nice gloss.
Fold this together.
You do not want to use a whisk.
You do not want to use a machine.
Fold together gently because if you use anything else,
you'll have a thousand billion little air bubbles
and your fondant will look horrible.
So be gentle with it.
My chocolate's nice and melty.
I'm taking it off heat.
That can hang out there though.
Let's get this all incorporated before we add the chocolate.
Okay, just a little bit of mixing later
and I have a beautiful,
pourable fondant without the chocolate,
the chocolate's next.
Get every drop of chocolate out,
one, because you don't want to waste,
but, two, it'll make cleaning so much easier.
Now we're gonna stir this in just until you have a nice,
smooth, even, combined, amazing chocolate fondant.
Okay, just a couple of minutes of mixing later
and I have a wonderful ivory fondant,
and that's gonna be very pourable.
This is ready.
We're gonna get to assembly now.
I'm so excited.
So cold out of the freezer.
So cold.
Okay.
Here's the deal,
a lot of recipes tell you to pour the fondant
over this cooling rack that's on here.
That is a nightmare.
It's gonna be super messy.
You're gonna waste all the fondant.
We're gonna do it a very easy way.
So get your fork out.
Daintily place that petit four right on top of the fork.
And you're gonna hover this over your bowl.
I need a spoon, where's my spoon?
Spoon this over the top,
and you're gonna want to have one big dip
and then tilt your cube so you get all the sides.
Tap the excess off.
If you see any bubbles on top, just pop them.
If you want the bottom covered as well,
you can either dip it like this or dip it using your fork,
and you'll get complete 360 coverage,
which is great if you're letting these hang out someplace
for quite a bit of time and you want them to stay fresh.
If you want a little bit of color for your fondant,
that is so easy.
Just add a drop or two of gel food coloring,
mix it in, and keep pouring.
I like to do like half of mine white, half of them pink,
and it gives you some variation of color.
Once you've completed all the petit four
and they're covered in fondant,
you're gonna give them some time to set up
so they're easily held.
It could be an hour or so,
because this needs some time just to firm up and dry out.
Once the fondant's set up,
you can do anything you want for decoration.
I'm gonna make buttercream roses because I love roses,
and I haven't piped them in quite a while.
I have a little bit of extra buttercream leftover.
I colored some pink, I colored some green,
and I left some white.
Using a small pedal tip it's a 101,
and I'm just gonna pipe a tiny little rose
right on the center and then a couple of leaves
and that's it.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
It's really just the suggestion of a tiny rose.
Repeat for the remaining ones,
and when you get tired, just do a different, simple design.
If you like this video, check out my French playlist.
(light music)
It's as delicious as it is beautiful.
The rest of these are gonna get boxed up
and sent, just because presents, for some local friends.
I'll see you in the next video.