petit fours and OPERA CAKE. note the emphasis on OPERA CAKE.

did i mention i'm excited to tell you about OPERA CAKE?

now it's a shame to post about anything AND opera cake, because honestly, opera cake will win. if you said "new born baby or opera cake" i'd pick opera cake. if you offered me a bag of gold, or opera cake...i'd probably pick the opera cake. it has gold leaf on it and it tastes better. but i digress.

i sacrifice the petit fours to this post...i'll force them to stand in the ambient light that gleams around the opera cake. mostly because they are good, but painfully sweet and sticky. sticky as anything i've encountered. and of all the things i've made so far, petit fours are my least favorite. i mean, that's like trying to pick the least most amazing thing i've learned,or the least cutest kitten... but ...someone's gotta occupy the base of the totem pole, no? so it's not in disrespect, just with MILD excitement that i talk about petit fours first.

we coated the bottom in a quick-setting chocolate known as pate a glacer and used an apricot filling between the two layers of amazing almond sponge. we finished them by laying a layer of marzipan across the final layer of apricot before we covered them in a meltable fondant which my partner and i tinted pink. the process is quite simple: you cut the little cakes up, set them apart from each other on a cooling rack and pour! and i am amazed at how much fondant must be poured to cover a single little cake. suffice it to say i know why petit fours are expensive and yet so yummy. worth the $$ if you ask me

little pink cubes of sweet, sweet heaven. but for me? one is PLENTY!

but really, let's just get down to it. let's talk about opera cake.

for someone who considers herself somewhat verbose, it's actually pretty difficult to describe this tiny little morsel of perfection. it's... layers of ...well it's elaborately layered. filled with rich, indulgent layers of ganache, coffee butter cream and thin almond sponge. it's, well it's topped with a poured chocolate. it's cut into cubes. it's decorated with gold leaf (or in some cases chocolate piping). i mean...it's... well look:

i can only tell you that this is like mana from heaven. literally, if you looked up "food" in a cookbook of the gods... you would see a photo of opera cake. i imagine they must lay around, listening to harps, frolicking amidst waterfalls and soft breezes, eating little bites of opera cake every so often, whenever they feel they are running low on secret, god-powers. or whatever. this isn't religious, it's just amazing. literally, just amazing.

again, you can only eat a bite. it's small, but it packs a punch. an indulgent, rich, sinfully amazing punch. but one cannot fill up too quickly on opera cake. one might get gold poisoning or something. though, if one were going to pick their poison: may i suggest gold? and specifically, the gold leaf found atop a little decadent square of opera cake.

maybe that's how that 'fat lady singing' got to be overweight? must've been the opera cake.