Petits Fours Galore~~~

Hi everyone, just ended a long day which stared out with our petits fours exam followed by a royal icing piping workshop... I'm beat... running around non stop in a kitchen to make pretty little things is exhausting!! I'll give you an update firstly on all the little desserts made in this section and leave my exam pics till tomorrow when I have downloaded them to my computer. I have to selectively use up whatever energy I have left as I am currently running on empty... just like when the fuel light comes on, at this point I may stall at any moment

 How many of you have melted butter in a saucepan? Show of hands?

For those who have, you probably stopped when you saw this

 However, for Financiers we cook it till it browns and smells nutty. That aroma is from the browning of the milk proteins in the butter. It is known as the Maillard reaction and that is probably more than you wished to know~ Too late! Taught you something! I'm sneaky that way.

 Fill a barquette mold that has been generously buttered for flavour more so than to prevent sticking~ and can be left plain or topped with fresh fruit or in my case I used a chocolate button

 Here are some large ones made in a bigger mold... These are dense and heavy cakes so a little goes a long way

 Here are my tiny ones unmolded

 I know what you're thinking. That does not look appetising. Wrong.

 Once baked, these tuile cookies give off their lovely orange and nutty goodness... not to mention the crunch of the caramelised batter

 Don't they resemble lace? 

 We also made Langue De Chat aka Cat's Tongue cookies

I have to say... these weren't very good... to make or to consume.

Ohhh yes. We made checkerboard cookies!!

 All I can say here is. Only attempt this on a very cold day or you will live to regret it.

 Two doughs need to be made, vanilla and chocolate. They are then rolled to equal thickness and stacked on top of each other. Strips of the doughs are then cut and the strips are stacked in opposite directions as seen above.

 An outer wrap is rolled out and wrapped around the log and then when fully chilled, the cookies are sliced into their little shapes and baked

 Tadah!

 Cute huh?

 Almost too cute to eat! Almost...*crunch... nom nom nom*

 The 2 same doughs can also be rolled thin, then stacked on top of each other and rolled tight, then chilled, cut and baked to form these swirl cookies

 As usual, being me, I made tiny swirls... Just how tiny is that you ask?

 This tiny v^.^v

 Comparison to normal cookie

 Speaking of cookies, we also made a lemon cookie sandwiched with raspberry-cassis jam which were dipped in chocolate.

 Oh yes, we also made small madelines :)

 More Petits Fours to come soon with part deux tomorrow... my body's shutting down now... goodnight everyone... 

xoxox