Ice Cream Petit Fours with Brown Butter Pound Cake

This months Daring Bakers Challenge was to make either Ice Cream Petit Fours or Baked Alaska. I wanted to make both and I was just discussing Baked Alaska with someone but I decided the Petit Fours would be much more practical. It is kind of hard to transport a Baked Alaska and I wanted to bring them to someone else's house for a dinner.

After seeing all the creativity in the Daring Bakers group last month I wanted to do at least something different. It is fun to see the different flavor combinations or other things (Baked Alaska on a Stick anyone?) that everyone does. I decided to keep it pretty simple and make a mint ice cream for mine. I just followed the same recipe except I steeped a few springs of mint leaves in the hot cream instead of the vanilla beans.

I think they turned out super. I have never had it before but turns out that brown butter pound cake is fantastic. I could have just eaten all the batter without cooking it - it tasted like butterscotch candy. The mint ice cream was good. My wife didn't like it even though she likes mint chocolate chip - but she is not a big fan of spearmint. Next time I should maybe try just adding some peppermint oil or something. Also if you want it to look like a store-bought mint you will need to add some coloring - it turned out very light green - I think it looked nice though.

These make a nice looking dessert. I decorated mine with Wilton Candy Melts (kinda like a white chocolate). I just stuck twenty or so of them in a piping bag and put them in the microwave for about 30 seconds. My three year old loved prying the decorations off the top of the petit fours and eating them. These are a fairly low-guilt dessert - not that they are healthy but they are small enough you don't have to feel too bad about eating one.

This months challenge was provided by Elissa at 17 and Baking. Check out her blog - fantastic cook, writer, and photographer and she is just 18 years old.

Download the pdf containing the original challenge here.