Chocolate-Covered Cream Cheese Pound Cake Petit Fours with Raspberry Filling

There are two things I’m positive everybody likes:  dessert and a miniature version of anything. Think about it, most people like babies, they are mini people in my mind, people like puppies…

Right? How cute is that thing. I got this photo from the site Cute Paws. People like mini cupcakes, mini shoes, mini horses (actually, those creep me out a little), but in any case, I think you get the point. So for the third dessert for my sister’s wine and cheese party, and keeping with the theme, I made these petit fours from a cream cheese pound cake filled with raspberry jam, and covered with a chocolate ganache – because why make a real cake when you can have lots of mini cakes!

I googled petit fours with cheese and this great pound cake recipe from Bakerella came up. I have to say, this is the best pound cake recipe ever! We were eating scraps and just slices of this stuff plain – it is moist, a perfect sweetness, rich texture, and creamy in a way. So good.

Then I found the assembly of petit fours with chocolate on Sugarlaws.

Here are the recipes.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

From Bakerella

Yield:  two 9×5” loaf pans

Ingredients:

3 ½ cup all purpose flour, sifted 1 tsp baking powder 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature 8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature 3 cups granulated sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 6 eggs, at room temperature 1 cup milk (2% or higher), at room temperature

Directions:

1. Grease and flour two 9×5 loaf pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Sift flour and baking powder in a medium sized bowl.
3. In a separate bowl using a handheld mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter, cream cheese, and sugar for about 6 minutes.
4. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla and milk until combined.
5. Add flour mixture until completely combined.
6. Pour mixture evenly between two loaf pans.
7. Bake for about 60 minutes until the top is a light brown color and the top springs back nicely.

Petit Fours

From Sugarlaws

Yield:  about 30 petit fours

Ingredients:

One 9×5 inch pound cake of your choice (or use the one above!) ½ cup raspberry jelly 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips ½ cup heavy cream Toppings of your choice (almonds, nonpareils, gold shavings, etc.)

Directions:

1. Cut pound cake into 1 inch cubes and then cut each cubes in half.
2. Spread thin layer of jelly on one half and join the two halves together.
3. In a double boiler, heat chocolate until just starting to melt. Remove from heat and stir in the heavy cream until thick and silky. Heat over double boiler again if necessary.
4. Dip each pound cake sandwich into the chocolate and place on wax or parchment paper on a baking sheet.
5. Decorate each petit four with the topping of your choice before the chocolate sets. Refrigerate until served.

For the pound cake, it was fun watching the ingredients start melding together.

and become super smooth.

Yum, I could’ve eaten that batter up raw!

These pound cakes were so pretty after baking. They split on the top which I kind of like, but don’t know if they were supposed to.

And then cut them open they are perfectly dense. I would probably use this recipe for a cake that I wanted to cut into a shape. I think it would work really great that way.

Practically no crumbs after cutting. Then I followed Sugarlaws direction and cut them into the 1 inch cubes.

Cut each piece in half to spread the jam in the center.

And what jam did I use?

Of course the Bonne Maman raspberry jam. I have never been disappointed so far with this jam.

There are my pretties.

For the chocolate ganache coating I cheated and just microwaved my chocolate. I did not use a double boiler, it’s so much more work to set up sometimes. It seemed to work fine for me that way!

And then I coated and garnished them!

Those are nonpareils and almonds.

The last step was the place them on the dessert table! You can read more about her wine and cheese at Photo Hungry!