Petit Fours

Ingredients

• 5 eggs
• 120 g sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 75 g flour
• 50 g ground almonds (peeled)
• sugar (for dusting)
• 200 g orange jam
• 20 ml orange liqueur
• 200 g marzipan base
• powdered sugar (for working)
• 200 g milk couverture
• 400 g white couverture
• 50 g dark chocolate couverture
• food coloring (yellow and red)
• 24 almonds (peeled)

Instructions

1. 1.

   Preheat the oven to 200°C fan.

2. 2.

   Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks with half of the sugar until fluffy. Whisk the whites with lemon juice until stiff peaks form, gradually adding the remaining sugar. Continue beating until the mixture shines and forms peaks. Mix flour with almonds. Fold the meringue into the yolk mixture, then add the flour-almond mix and stir gently. Spread the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment (about 30x40 cm) and bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown. Transfer to a sugared kitchen towel, remove the parchment but let it cool on top of the dough. Then cut lengthwise in half. Whisk the jam with liqueur until smooth. Spread both biscuit layers with the jam (optionally filtered through a sieve) and stack them together. Press lightly.

3. 3.

   Knead the marzipan base with some powdered sugar and roll to about 3 mm thickness. Place on the cake and trim any excess edges if needed. Press gently again and cut into roughly 24 Petit Four squares with a sharp knife. Place an almond in the center of each square and set them on a rack (with a baking sheet underneath).

4. 4.

   For decoration, chop all couvertures and melt over a double boiler. Let cool slightly and color the white couverture half yellow and half pink with a few drops of food coloring. Before decorating, fill small piping bags with some white couverture and dark chocolate couverture. Coat the Petit Fours with the remaining couverture, let dry briefly, then pipe line patterns with the coloured couverture. Allow to set again. Optionally place in praline molds and serve.