Petit Four pt. 2

My first two-part post.Wow. That's cool. Uh...Yeah, Cool.

Since I broke a lot of this down in the first part, I'm gonna skip the fore play and get down to business. Here is a list of what you are gonna need to finish the petit four:

1 bag of semi sweet chocolate
1 pint (16oz) of heavy cream
pound cake*
1 jar of Nutella

*The pound cake. I'll be honest, I didn't make it.....at home. I made it at work. Some of it just happened to fall in my tool box and ended up in my home. That sounds believable, right? Anyway, the point is that this is one part of the recipe you don't need to go crazy with. If you wanna buy some pre-made pound cake, by all means go for it. You got some cinnamon raisin bread going stale, USE IT! One of the best parts of cooking is making use of what you have on hand.

First thing you are gonna do is slice your pound cake into little squares. Once you have your little squares, slice those in half, and keep each piece next to the piece it was sliced from. Next, scoop out some Nutella into a small zip lock bag and warm in the microwave for about 30 seconds or so. Just enough to loosen it up to squeeze out the bag. When warm, cut a small hole at the bottom corner of the baggy and squeeze a little nutella on one side of the pound cake.

Now, put the other half of pound cake over the nutella to make a little sandwich. Push down a little on it to make sure it sticks. If some of the filling comes out the sides, just smooth it out with your fingers. Licking your fingers at this point is perfectly acceptable. :)

Once that is done, cover and place in the fridge until needed. Now to make the ganache. Very simple. Equal parts of chocolate and heavy cream. I used 8oz of each when I made this. That should be a good amount for you if you're not making that much. Just heat up the cream until it looks like it's going to boil, than pour over your chocolate and stir umtil smooth. You don't need a very vigorous stir with the ganache. Nice and steady.

Now it's time for the Nougatine. Break off a couple small pieces, get a nice sharp knife, and slowly chop the nougatine. If you try and chop it fast, it's gonna fly all over the kitchen. Once you get it to the size you want, place in a small container and cover until ready to use.

If you have a cooling screen for cookies and such, place your pound cake sandwiches on that and pour the ganache over until covered. If you don't have a screen like me, you might have to get creative. Here's what I did. I got a pie tin and set a shot glass in the center, Turn the shot glass upside down and set the pound cake on top of the shot glass.

While your ganache is sill warm and has a good viscosity, slowly pour over the pound cake. Make sure all corners get covered. I used a small offset spatula to lift it. Don't have one? Just use a butter knife to lift it up.

Once all of them are covered, place in the fridge to let the ganache set. When you are ready to serve them, add the chopped nougatine. The longer the nougatine stays out, the stickier it's going to become. So, if you wanna keep the crunch, don't add it until it's ready to go out.

And there you have it. There are lots of things you can do to add even more flavor, like making a simple syrup to give the pound cake more kick. Really, I wanted to keep it simple. Everyone that tried it seemed to like it. Here's a few of them.

From left to right: Sammi (my future baby mama), Fabiola(She thinks I'm a bully!), and Kristin(She's on my good side. For now.). :) For real, I consider all three of these ladies good friends and value their opinion. They told me they liked, and that's good enough for me.

I hope that you enjoyed this little journey and will come back soon for more good times and good food.

Take Care,

J. Miller