 A petit four (plural: petits fours) is a small cake generally eaten at the end of a meal or served as part of a large buffet. The name is from the French petit four, meaning "small oven".
Typically, in America, petits fours consist of alternate layers of sponge cake and butter cream topped by frosting and are approximately 1 inch square and about 1.5 to 2 inches high. They are covered with fondant, often pastel in color, and are commonly decorated with piped icing roses or other sugar embellishments. The term petit four may also, however, refer to any of a variety of small confections, especially in France, where the American-style layered sponge cake is not typical.
There are two different categories of petits fours. Petits fours secs (sec meaning "dry") include a variety of small desserts, such as special dainty cookies, baked meringues, macaroons, and puff pastries. Petits fours glaces (glace meaning "iced") are iced or decorated in some way, such as tiny cakes covered in fondant or frosting, small eclairs, and tartlets. In a French patisserie, assorted small desserts are usually called mignardises, while hard, buttery cookies are called petit fours.
There are also the petits fours sales, which are bite-sized salted appetizers usually served as part of cocktail parties or buffets.
Petits fours were traditionally made during the
cool down process of brick ovens fired by coal fuel in the 18th century. Coal heat is hard to control as it burns so much hotter than wood, and at the time was much more expensive so waste of the heat generated was not an option.
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