Petits Fours

Petits fours are generally defined as small confections that are served and eaten at the very end of a meal, after the main dessert. Translated from the French language, the term petit four means “small oven,” meaning an oven at a low temperature. This term dates back to the eighteenth century to Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833), who was the first to mention these items. The petits fours had to be baked after the larger cakes, as the coal oven was starting to cool down. The cost of coal was so high at the time that the chef did not want to waste any of its precious heat.