Petit Four | Gift Cakes | Mini Cakes Iced With Pouring Fondant | Edible Gifts | Virtual Birthday Party For Priya Suresh

Want some beautiful desserts for some elegant luncheons or parties or do you want some eye-pleasing edible gifts!! Then here it is!! Petits Fours, miniature cakes, a colorful delectable confectionery or dessert prepared with a basic sponge cake an some icing sugar. Petits fours in French means small oven I do jot exactly know the reason behind the name but just love these cuties, these are bite sized cakes iced with pouring fondant and decorated elegantly. You do not need much fancy ingredients here, just a sponge cake, either baked at home or got from bakery and some icing sugar will do. You can optionally make it more lovely with different colors and decorative things. You can prepare these for any bridal showers, parties, baby showers or for any get together and make it the elegant icon of the party. Beautiful variations can be done according to your creativity and according to the theme of your party. I tried these for the first time for a virtual birthday party and though it did not look much perfect my family loved the very look of the pink bite sized cakes. Though it takes some effort its worth trying and also the whole process is fun!! 

Today is our dear blogger friend Priya Suresh akka's birthday and we blogger friends decided to give our dear akka a virtual birthday treat with colorful desserts. Am sure there everyone knows about this versatile blogger. She has been a wonderful person who encourages fellow people and I have been really admiring her. She is one of my best friend, good sister and above all a fun companion. Another thing I really admire is the her 

Happy Birthday dear Priya Suresh akka. Love your passion for blogging, the way you encourage fellow bloggers, your love for your family, your personality and lots more. I never knew we would become this close, I was one among the person who admired your blog so much but did not dare to start a conversation with you thinking that you might not respond like the some bloggers do. But you were one of the most kindest person I have ever known and feel sad I have missed you for long. Be the same person who you are, who makes other's lives colorful and happy. On this special day we wish you wonderful & colorful days ahead. Here is an award for you that you truly deserve!! 

Here are pinky pink cake bites for your virtual treat akka!! Hope you like it!!
Happy Birthday!!

INGREDIENTS

Makes 16 small bites
Preparation Time - 2 hours (plus 6 hours for drying)

1. Sponge cake - 1 (baked in a square tin; I used a 12cm tin) 

Pouring Fondant For Icing The Cakes

1. Icing sugar - 300 grams (plus 50 grams for decorating part)
2. Warm water - As needed 
3. Vanilla essence - 1 tsp 
4. Food color - I used pink gel color 

I did not have corn syrup so instead I prepared sugar syrup and used it. 

For Sugar Syrup

1. Sugar - 150 grams 
2. Water - 50 ml 
3. Lemon juice - 2 teaspoons 

 

PREPARATION METHOD

• Bake a sponge cake and leave aside until it cools well. Follow this cake recipe or try any sponge cake recipe. 
• If your cake has risen in the center then slice the top of the cake perfectly.
• After it cools down well, using a ruler and knife cut the cake into perfect equal squares. (Mine was a 12 cm square cake, so I cut it into 3cm*3cm 16 pieces)  
• (Some recipes called for freezing but I did not want to harden the cake, so skipped this step. But frozen cakes gives perfect squares, mine were not too perfect) 
• Now set these pieces aside. 

Prepare Sugar Syrup (If you have light corn syrup use it instead of sugar syrup)

• Add the 150 grams of sugar in a sauce pan and pour 50 ml of water into it, Place on low flame and stir well until it gets sticky in consistency (2 string consistency), pour some lemon juice to avoid crystallization. 

Pouring Fondant Recipe

I have already posted a previous glace icing recipe you can check here for reference, but I followed the following recipe for icing these cakes. 

• Sieve icing sugar so that there are no lumps in it. 
• To this sieved icing sugar, add half of the sugar syrup and mix well. 
• Then add warm water little by little. (Very little water will be enough, please pour carefully, like a tablespoon at a time) 
• Mix well see that the mixture is not too runny. If your mixture turns very runny and does not coat a spoon, then add some more icing sugar)
• Dip a ladle or a spoon to see if it coats well and see whether there are any lumps, if you find any lumps stir really well until it dissolves, if not, then place the bowl on a sauce pan with water and (double boiling method; see that the bowl is heat proof and see that the bowl does not get fully immersed in the sauce pan) and place on flame. Keep stirring until the lumps disappear, it may take a few minutes. 

• Now remove the pan from flame and dip a spoon to see if the coating is smooth without lumps. If so proceed to the next step, else use the double boiling method again. 
• Now add the essence and mix well. 
• The basic icing mixture is now ready. (If left open for a long time, it will start to dry, if this happens add little warm water and dilute whenever needed)
• I used this white icing to coat 8 small cakes, then I added food color and used the same icing mixture to coat the other 8 pieces. (You can add some food color later and use it for the other remaining cakes) 

ICING CAKES

(Ice half of the cakes with white and half with pink or according to your wish)

For white cakes 

• Take a cookie tray and line it with parchment paper or wax paper. Then place the wire rack over it. The parchment paper will help to collect the extra icing mixture and this set up reduces mess.
• Now place one small cake piece on a fork and pour the icing over it with a ladle on all sides, see that the icing covers the cake pieces fully. You can optionally dip the cake in the icing mixture, but I prefer the pouring method.

• Then use a spoon and gently slide of the cake from the fork onto a wire rack. 
• Do the same with the rest of the cake pieces. (The icing will be bit transparent so to make it opaque a few more coatings will do.)
• When done, let the cake pieces aside for 10 minutes for the first coating to dry. Now gently lift the cake piece with a fork and again pour the icing mixture to give a second coating. Place on wire rack until it dries up. (You can give another coating too after the second one dries; if its still transparent) 

• (if your icing mixture starts to dry up, then add some warm water and mix well to get the flow-y consistency)
• Now take a spoon of this mixture and set aside (this is for the decoration part) 

For Pink cakes

• Now add the gel food color and mix well. Add food color according to the type of shade you need. 
• Now pour this icing mixture over the rest of the cakes and follow the above said procedure to coat the cakes. 
• Give 2 or 3 coatings and set aside for it to dry well. 

(For the light pink shade cakes, I poured a layer of pink icing mixture over the white iced cake pieces. It gave a nice color, you can follow this or skip this step) 

For Decoration

You will need a disposable plastic piping bag, and extra icing sugar. 

• Now to the white icing mixture and pink icing mixture add some more icing sugar and make a thick paste out of it. Add this into icing bags and trim off the edge to make a small opening (As it is a small quantity I did not use nozzle).
• Now pipe small lines across the cakes and pipe a bow. I piped some random design at the bottom of the cake too. Handle the cakes very carefully, else the icing will easily crack. You can make any design or even use some ready-made decorations. 
• Let the icing to dry atleast for 6 hours. 
• Serve or gift pack them.

TIP 1: You can freeze the cakes and then ice them, it will give you perfect squares. But the cake will harden so I do not prefer it but still it all depends on your preferences for a perfect petit four. Mine had some crumbles in the sides which did not give a smooth appearance after icing, so for perfect cakes freeze them or chill them in a refrigerator and then cut into pieces. 

TIP 2: I use gel color, you can use any edible food colors to color the icing. 

TIP 3: Serve within 2 days. Do not store for long. 

TIP 4: I have coated the cakes 3 times with icing, but you can just coat it a single time.

Delectable and cute little bite sized cakes are now ready!! Serve or gift pack them!!

Have a colorful Birthday Priya Suresh akka :) Here is a collage of all the colorful desserts we prepared for your birthday party!!