Daring Bakers' Challenge: Ice Cream Petit Fours

Hey everyone! I'm back from Sicily and I can't wait to show you some pictures and tell you all about the best food I've ever eaten! But first, I'm happy to share my second Daring Bakers' Challenge which I prepared shortly before I went on holiday.


The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

I decided to go for the Ice Cream Petit Fours. First, I made the ice cream. I chose a recipe for a coconut saffron ice cream from Nicole Stich's book "delicious days". That went all well, whereas the brown butter cake was a little more complicated. I have never browned butter before and I burned it the first time. The second time, I watched the pan like a hawk and I probably took it away from the hot plate a little too early but I figured that was better than burning it again. When browning the butter, it gets a nutty smell which I really like. It gives the cake a very special and delicious flavour.

I made both, a white and dark chocolate icing for the petit fours. The decoration was a spontaneous idea. I found some red sugar flowers in my cupboard and I thought that would look nice together with the gladiolus blossoms. The gladiolus was a present from my friend Danny and I thought that I might as well put it to good use before it began to wither.


I decorated some of the dark chocolate petit fours with meringue crumbles and cut them in halves so that one could see the inside. After the first few shots, I arranged them together with the gladiolus blossoms again because I thought it looked too bland without some colour.


After the photo session, I ate one of the petit fours right away :-) they make a very nice little dessert together with a coffee. I really liked this challenge! Thanks to Elissa for the ideas and the instructions! (Get them here by the way!)