Making Petit Fours in San Francisco!

While in San Francisco on a business trip I got to spend a couple of days with CoCo and Franco, friends from the Peace Corps. FranCoCo (as they are affectionately known) had a brunch planned for Sunday morning with CoCo’s family and CoCo and I wanted to make some sort of brunch desert. After combing through a few of CoCo’s awesome cookbooks, we decided on a Martha Stewart recipe for Petit Fours.

If you’ve never made a Martha Stewart recipe before, you should. It was hilarious, in a micro-managed kind of way. We did our best to follow Martha’s explicit instructions and I think we did a pretty good job.

The first step was to make the cake (which included hand made almond paste). 

It was my job to spread the batter evenly in the pan. Apparently that is not a skill I possess… 

The next step was to cut the pieces into cute shapes and coat them with icing, which CoCo did beautifully. We then mixed the icing for the tops and dyed them pretty colors. They had to harden in the refrigerator for a bit. Here they are, ready to be cut!

The tops were almost like cement so the cutting was a little painful but we eventually had tops for all our cakes.

We had to stop for a photo, which warranted pulling the ladder out of the closet. 

Next, the decorations.

The finished product! 

We were pretty proud of our little cakes. We added them to the amazing brunch spread that included a homemade goat cheese quiche with hash brown crust, rolls, fruit salad, pastries, and a delicious arugula salad. 

CoCo’s sister, brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew arrived, as well as a couple of friends and we all sat down to eat.

There wasn’t enough room for everyone in the breakfast room, though, so Franco and I ate outside. It was a little chilly but they have a lovely little bistro type space on their back deck.

After brunch it was time to dive into the Petit Fours!

The little cakes were delicious.

Brunch wasn’t the only thing we did while I was there, though. First, CoCo picked me up from my hotel and we went to Pika Pika, which is absurdly fun. You go into these photo booths and take pictures with all different poses. Then you use touch screens with all the instructions in Japanese to alter your photos. Part of the fun is the challenge of figuring out what each button does and how to add what you want.

After Pika Pika we hit up a Japanese restaurant for some noodle and rice dishes. Yum!

Next stop was CoCo’s apartment. CoCo and Franco live in a cute 2-bedroom in the Mission District of San Francisco. They are only a 10 minute walk from the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit – SF’s version of the metro). They have a picture of Nic Cage in their front window. I love it.

That evening we got pizza and grabbed a movie at the revival theater. The original Indiana Jones! It was great. And the theater is adorable. There was even an organ player who played the Indiana Jones theme just before the movie started.

The Marquee

On top of hosting me for a few days, I also got a Christmas present from FranCoCo. My very own knitted hat! Now I’m part of a very exclusive “Knitted by CoCo” Hat Club! 

I had an amazing time in San Francisco and I was sad to leave. Thanks, FranCoCo, for a great trip!