Yesterday, I drove up to Marin, enduring record-breaking June rainfall, to take a petit four (French for "little oven") class at
Dragonfly Cakes in Sausalito.
During the Fancy Food Show this year, I encountered Brooks Coulson Nguyen's at her Dragonfly Cakes booth. There were trays and trays of delightful pastel colored petit fours. Yes, we were allowed to sample, but all of them looked so delectable, it was so difficult to choose just one! (so I had two.) When Groupon featured a class to learn how to make your own petit fours at Dragonfly Cakes, I could not pass up the opportunity!
Andrea was our instructor for the day. The entire petit four process requires multiple steps, and multiple days - our class was only two hours, so we got a condensed overview of the process, and spent most of our time on the decorating step (IMHO - the "fun-est" step).
I took copious notes, and now fully appreciate all the work that goes into creating these cute, delicious, one-bite treats.
Phase 1: Making and Preparing the Cake
Dragonfly uses a chiffon cake base, that is light, airy and not too sweet. Andrea mentioned that some past students have tried this at home using box cake mix, but beware, the texture of box mix cake might be more difficult to use.
A very thin layer of batter is poured on a sheet pan, lined with parchment paper, and sprayed with non-stick spray (ie, PAM), do not use the Baker's Spray, which typically includes flour, and do not use the flavored non-stick spray, or olive oil versions. The pan goes into a hot oven, and bakes for about 5 mins.
Once the cake has fully cooled (you can freeze), scrape off the "sugar bloom" off the top of the cake. This will make sure that the cake layers will adhere to the fillings, otherwise they might "slip off". After scraping off the sugar bloom, flip over the cake and carefully peel it off the parchment. Cut the cake into more manageable pieces for assembly - Andrea cut the sheet cake into quarters. First she brushed each layer with sugar syrup (equal parts sugar and water) to rehydrate the cake, and make a moist petit four. Then she applied a layer of buttercream, another layer of cake, brush with simple syrup, chocolate ganache (flavor layer), topped ganache with more butter cream, another layer of cake, brush with simple syrup, layer of buttercream. Re-cap: 3 layers of cake (brushed with simple syrup), each topped with a layer of buttercream, and the second layer has a layer of flavor applied directly to the cake (in this example, ganache - but you can use any of your favorite jams (no seeds!) and curds). On the very top of all of these cake and buttercream layers, is a layer of marzipan (vs a cake layer) for a smooth even finish.
To roll out marzipan, dust the rolling surface and rolling pin with corn starch - you can use powdered sugar too. DO NOT use flour!!!!
Roll out thinly and evenly, and then loosen from surface with an off-set spatula. Using a piece of parchment paper, cut the marzipan to match your cake layers. Then using a dowel, slowly roll up the marzipan off the table, taking care to brush off excess corn starch along the way. Lay the marzipan on top of the cake layers.
Freeze this overnight.
Phase 2: Cutting and Decorating the Cakes
Once the cake as frozen and set overnight, now it is time to cut and decorate!
Andrea taught that cutting and decorating the mini-cakes are best done when they are still frozen. She also recommended that instead of attempting diagonal cuts (for diamond shapes) you can cut straight strips, then cut these strips diagonally. Different shapes were used to help differentiate the flavors - apricot was rectangle, diamond for hazelnut, and paralellagram for rasperry and chocolate. Dragonfly has a cutting machine so that is how they get an entire sheet of perfect, even mini-cakes.
The cakes are then dipped in coating chocolate - which can be the same Candy Wafers we used when we made cakeballs. Coating chocolate is chocolate that has some cocoa fat removed and replaced with oil to prevent blooming, unsightly streaks, and removes the need to temper (just put in microwave). A flavorless oil, like vegetable, or soybean is added to the melted candy wafers to get a thin, runny consistancy (when warm - at room temp, it should still be able to solidify). Dragonfly gets their coating chocolate from Italy.
To dip the frozen cake pieces into the coating chocolate - use a fork to submerge the cake under the chocolate a few times, to make sure all of the bubbles are out, and the cake is evenly coated. Lift the cake with your fork, with the marzipan layer-side up, gently tap a few times on the side of the container to remove excess coating, then gently place on parchment so the coating can set and harden. Now the fun begins! Deco-a-palooza!
The team at Dragonfly supplied us with a broad variety of fun things to decorate our chocolate coated cakes!
- Edible glitter - sparkly, bright colored glitter, some in heart shapes. The chocolate coating needs to be wet in order for this to stick, so apply before your coating sets fully, or cheat (like we did) by piping some liquid coating on top then sprinkle glitter on top.
- White chocolate coating was turned into brightly colorored chocolate using oil-based food coloring. Andrea made piping bags using triangles of parchment paper - rolled and then stapled sealed on top, so the filling didn't ooze out the back side. If using food coloring, make sure that the coloring is oil-based, or else it cause the chocolate to "seize up".
- Molded chocolate shapes - flowers, stars, moons, circles handmade by the staff of Dragonfly Cakes.
We sprinkled, piped, and applied to our heart's content. When we left, we each had boxes of happy little cakes to bring home to eat (and maybe to share..)
I highly recommend the Petit Four class at Dragonfly Cakes! The staff is friendly and knowledgeable, and the class is so much fun! (and you bring home many delicious memories!!)
Enjoy!
