Easy Petit Fours Recipe

When you picture making a batch of petit fours, the word "easy" probably doesn't come to mind. Petit fours are tiny, adorable cakes that are rooted in France (via The Spruce Eats). Preparing petit fours may seem like a pretty advanced baking project, but with this easy petit fours recipe from recipe developer and blogger Jennine Bryant of The Marshside Pantry, you can whip up a batch without having Martha Stewart's baking skills.

Petit fours' name surprisingly doesn't have anything to do with the number four, but translates to "small oven" and refers to the way that these teatime delicacies were made, according to Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. Nineteenth century ovens didn't have much in the way of controlled temperature, with essentially only two settings: as hot as possible, called "grand four" or "big oven," and cooling down, called "petit four" or "small oven." The heat contained in the petit four was all these adorable little cakes needed to be cooked, so they appropriately became known as petit fours.

But this recipe might as well be called "non four," because you won't even need to turn the oven on at all! It's that easy. And it's a spectacular dessert that looks special and tastes so great. Anyone you serve it to will be impressed.

To make these easy petit fours, you'll need blueberry jam and blueberries. For the icing, you'll need 1 cup of icing sugar, also known as powdered sugar, in addition to water and vanilla extract. And last but certainly not least, you'll need cake, specifically one loaf-shaped pound cake. This recipe is all about making petit fours that look great but don't take much time or effort, so any store-bought loaf-shaped pound cake will work. That being said, if you want to DIY, you could try this pound cake recipe (minus the icing).

If the top of the loaf-shaped pound cake is uneven, trim it so that it is flat, and then flip the cake over so that the trimmed side is now the bottom of the cake. Cut the cake into even thirds, lengthwise.

Cutting cake sounds like, well, a piece of cake, but it can be surprisingly tricky. It's easier if the cake is cold, so try popping the pound cake in the freezer for a few minutes before cutting it. Bryant says that while she usually uses a wire cake leveler when making a cake, she recommends just using a big knife for this recipe. "I'd suggest using as big a knife as you own. That way, there is less chance for movement and [it's] easier to keep the cutting straight," Bryant says.

"To cut it fairly evenly, I suggest just taking it slowly," Bryant notes. "It really doesn't have to be perfect, though — my cutting definitely wasn't. If they end up a little wonky, it just makes them look more homemade and rustic!"

Spread 3 generous teaspoons of blueberry jam along the bottom layer of the cake. Stack the middle layer on top, and then spread 3 teaspoons of blueberry jam on top of the middle layer. Add the top layer. Once all three sections of the cake have been stacked, trim the sides to make them as neat as possible. Once the cake layers have been stacked and trimmed, cut the cake lengthwise once, and then into even squares, making twelve slices of cake.

To prepare the icing, mix the cup of icing sugar, vanilla extract, and water together to form a paste. Pour around 1 teaspoon on top of each cake. You don't have to get fancy or fussy here. "It doesn't have to be neat,"Bryant says. "The drips make it look pretty and homemade!"

Before the icing dries, pop a blueberry on top of each cake. And that's it! You made a high-tea level dessert in less than 15 minutes. Serve them as an afternoon snack tea, a brunch treat, or as a dessert after a meal. The presentation will be amazing. Grab a pretty platter to display them on, and get ready to receive lots of compliments.