First there was the chocolate-chip cookie craze. Next came cupcakes. Now it's petit fours. Actually, I'm making up the last craze. It hasn't happened yet. But I'm hoping it will. If I had my way, instead of banning smoking or pressuring New Yorkers to reduce their sodium intake, Mayor Bloomberg would pass some rule or law or proclamation requiring any bakery in New York be granted an operating license to sell these delightful, bite-size treats.
That's practically how it was in the past. Not that bake shops were forced to carry petit fours in addition to cakes and pies, but they did so voluntarily. I used to conduct confectionery tours of Manhattan for out-of-towners that started on Madison Avenue in the 60s and ended in the 80s. Frankly, there was no need to go any farther afield because there were so many great bakeries right on the avenue—Rigo, G&M, Greenberg (the latter still exists, but I can't recall whether they sell petit fours; I'm usually focused on their rainbow cookies).
Rigo definitely sold them. One in particular bobs to the surface of memory, and for obvious reason. A marzipan cone topped with a red cherry and then covered in white frosting, it bore an unmistakable anatomical resemblance to a woman's nipple.
"I always thought they looked like that, too," said Madeline Lanciani, who owns the Duane Park Patisserie in TriBeCa, where the art of the petit four is flourishing. "Why were they selling them? I never made them for that very reason."
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