Little bites of delight – SHF #24

I have been known to mention that I am more of a fan of canapes or hors d’ouevres than I am of proper main courses.  There is nothing I like more than a succession of little nibbles, each carefully constructed and intensely flavoured – far more so than you could get away with in the case of a big plate of food.  And if I am a fan of little savoury nibbles, it should come as no surprise that I am also a fan of little sweet nibbles.  I don’t have a sweet tooth as such and I’m the kind of weirdo that can quite easily be satisfied with 2 squares of chocolate – there is no way I’ll eat the whole bar!  Rather give me a bite-sized but intriguing sweet morsel.  Rather let me have the cheese course and bring me little macarons with my coffee.  Bliss.

Last week I was minding my own business, trying to finish my mammoth post on our Mexican cooking day, when out of the blue, an offer landed in my lap – an offer to host Sugar High Friday!  Seeing as I haven’t participated since April 2005 (!!) I was surprised that anybody would entrust this fine event to me – but entrust it they have, bless them 🙂  For those of you who still don’t know, Sugar High Friday is the brainchild of the lovely Jennifer over at The Domestic Goddess who started this event way back in October 2004.  The idea was to have a monthly cooking event where bloggers would all make something sweet in line with the host’s chosen theme that month.  Past themes have included things like puff pastry, coffee, caramel, tarts and a holiday cookie swap.  Something for everyone, really!

Which brings me back to my first paragraph and this month’s theme.  I have nothing against great big steaming bowls of bread and butter pudding, or chocolate souffles, or pears poached in red wine.  But there is something about petits fours (or mignardises or friandises) that simply enchants me.  So much effort and attention to detail going into something so small and so delicate; so much flavour packed into a little parcel.  What’s not to like?  They are the dessert equivalent of a canape – small and perfectly formed, and they always leave their audience panting for more.  Kind of like Dita von Teese, with frosting :o)  So I hereby declare this month’s theme to be Little Bites of Delight, because good things come in small packages.

So what do you need to do?

1.  Find or create a recipe for petits fours, mignardises or friandises and make some.  Just two a words of warning here:  1) please do NOT make chocolate truffles – these will soon form the theme of their very own event, and we don’t want you to be all truffled out before then; and 2) please do NOT make cookies as there is another cookie swap planned and we don’t want you to use up all your good ideas yet! [apparently not true – so bring on the florentines and financiers! – Ed.]

2.  Write up your beautiful little bites of delight on your blog.  A photo would be lovely too 🙂 If you do not have a blog, don’t worry – you too can now participate in Sugar High Friday!  Alanna has set up a special site where non-bloggers can be bloggers-for-a-day and see their sugary creations on the net.  Follow the simple instructions on the site and I will make sure your contribution appears both on the site and in the SHF roundup.

3.  Once you have posted your little treasures (and this is important, folks), send me an e-mail including a link to your post.  If you don’t let me know about your creation, I can’t include it in the roundup!

4.  The deadline for all of this is Friday 27 October.  Anything I receive by the time I wake up on Saturday 28 October (about 9 GMT) will be included in the round-up.  Anything after that is on shaky ground.

Easy enough?  So off you go and find your own personal bites of delight.

[If it’s inspiration you are after, try Petit Fours’ phenomenally lovely website (from which the gorgeous photo was borrowed); or this guy’s site; or Sam’s recent slide show about making mignardises.]

***STOP PRESS***  If you want to see how everybody interpreted this theme, check out my SHF#24 roundup – over 40 petit four inspirations!