Metamorphosis

Technically speaking, a complete change of form, structure or substance has not really occurred here.  Actually the process was more like evolution than metamorphosis, but the word metamorphosis has a much more alluring quality in my mind.

It all started when I saw a photograph of a beautiful cake in a Betty Crocker fall entertaining magazine. Amaretto Almond Poundcake.  My mouth was watering!  Naturally, I did what any sane person would do in response to such a yearning for cake- I challenged my family to a bake-off!  Unfortunately, the bake-off concept was not really a hit.  While my Mom, sister and two girlfriends did come by to visit, I was the only baker that afternoon.  My wonderful cake sent very tempting aromas wafting through the house.  In fact, the crowd grew quite restless for the cake's removal from the oven...so I went against my better judgement and removed the cake too early.  (Mistake number one.)  I then applied the accompanying hot glaze over the still soft cake.  (Mistake number two.)  My final mistake was flipping the cake out of the Bundt pan too early, and to my dismay the inside wall of the cake collapsed.  Disappointing defeat.

But the cake tasted absolutely wonderful; I knew something must be done to transform it.  That's when the idea to try petits fours came to mind.  Though I'd never made them before, I read about the process of making them from various sources and settled on a plan.  My crumbled poundcake was not the ideal building block, but I carefully cut out fairly uniform, thin slices of cake and layered them with fresh raspberry fruit spread.  Because I was a bit intimidated by the prospect of making pourable fondant (a very traditional topping for petits fours), I opted to coat my petits fours with ganache instead.  Once the coating set, I finished the top of each miniature cake with a drizzle of white chocolate.

Then remained the question of what to do with the ganache as there was so much of it left.  I decided to try my hand at truffles, carefully rolling the chilled ganache into balls and then coating each in cocoa powder.  To my delight this method worked.  Simply delicious- an inspired transformation indeed!