Foodie Friday: Italian Petit Fours (Rainbow cookies)

Today I am joining our most talented and lovely Michael, from Designs By Gollum, for her Foodie Friday meme.  Thanks for letting me play, Michael!

Just recently I made a family favorite that is requested by all year after year.  I originally got this recipe from my friend Lori, from my 1997 email loop, and have been making it every Christmas for quite some time.  Lori says they're easy to make.  I say they're not hard to make, but they're a royal pain in the ass.  Absolutely worth it though!

4 Eggs
1 Cup flour
1 Cup sugar
2 sticks butter, melted
1 tsp. almond extract
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 Tbl. vegetable oil
Apricot preserves
red and green food coloring
3 pans, size 10x7x2 (weird size pan, but it's important to get this size)


Preheat oven to 350.
Grease and flour your 3 pans.


Melt butter and let cool. Beat eggs with mixer and gradually add sugar. Add flour gradually, then melted butter and almond extract. Beat until batter is smooth.

Using a measuring cup (because you are going to think you don't have enough batter), measure out 1 cup of batter 3 times and put each into a separate bowl. Use 8 drops or so of green food coloring in one bowl, red in another, and leave the 3rd.

Pour each batter into a pan, smoothing it out to the sides and corners. It's going to be very thin.

Bake for 10 minutes, then cool on a rack for 10 minutes. The cakes will look shiny because of all the butter in the recipe.

Once cooled, turn red cake over onto waxed paper and cover with a THIN layer of apricot preserves. I always remove any lumps of apricot. You basically just want enough to put a moistening sheen on the cake.

Put white cake over red, apply apricot preserves.

Put green cake over white, and then using your hands, press the layers together well.

Melt your chocolate chips with the oil in the microwave. I stop and stir every 30 seconds. Using a spatula, smooth chocolate over the green layer of cake. Put in freezer for 5 or 10 minutes (flash freeze) until chocolate hardens. Take out, turn over, and smooth chocolate onto red side. Flash freeze, remove from freezer, and cut into squares.

You're done!

 And if you did it right, you'll have something that looks similar to this!

 

These are truly delicious.  If you try them, please let me know!!!  Merry Christmas all!

Pssst! If you love me, you might love my stupid sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!