As the mercury shoots up, life in the kitchen is like living in a pressure cooker, with the rich fare of winter festival tables pushed to the backburner of culinary dreams, left to simmer unattended till the distant chills of autumn descend to touch and re-kindle the home kitchen fires.

At The Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi, Chef Lalit Mehta is busy soaking summer fruits for salads and arranging platters of petit fours for this season's speciality -- sweet meals. Miniature portions cater to micro appetites. Assorted petit fours, dainty and delicate, may take a little extra time for preparation, but these have the distinct advantage of visual appeal and dramatic arrival on dinner tables: served as bite-sized morsels, small enough to satisfy the stomach without waging a war with the summer heat, petit fours make a perfect ending to any summertime meal.

A number of petit fours were traditionally baked in a slow oven after the lager cakes had been removed and the oven temperature had dropped. The variety of these sweet meals is almost endless, from brittle, wafer-thin biscuits to iced petit sponges, candied fruit marzipans, and minuscule meringues they all represent French culinary artistry at its best. Gift a box of petit fours, or serve a selection to friends accompanied by the aroma and full flavour of freshly brewed South Indian coffee.

WALNUT SPONGE PETIT FOURS

Ingredients (For Sponge): Butter, 250 gms; sieved icing sugar, 250 gms; walnuts, finely chopped to a powder, 250 gms; lightly beaten eggs, 250 gms; flour, 25 gms; rum, 25 ml.

For Icing: Sieved icing sugar, 200 gms; thin sugar syrup, 2 tbs.

For Decoration: Chopped nuts; glace cherries.

Method: Beat the butter and icing sugar together until the mixture turns light and creamy in texture. Mix in the walnut powder, eggs, flour and rum. Spoon the combination into small greased tin moulds, or turn it into a lightly oiled 8-inch square tin lined with butter paper.

Bake in a pre-heated oven (180oC/Gas No. 4/350oF) for about 10 minutes, if you use small tins, or for approximately 20 minutes when you use a large tin. The cake should turn golden and firm to the touch. Let it cool for five minutes before placing it on a wire rack to cool. Cut the large cake into neat 1-inch squares.

To prepare the icing, combine the icing sugar with enough sugar syrup to produce a `coating'-consistency icing. If too thin, the `glace' icing will flow off the petit fours; if too thick, it won't spread evenly. Use icing to coat the small cakes. Decorate as desired with chopped nuts and glace cherries. Set aside the petit fours until the icing sets. Serve in small paper cups.

Variations: Vary the nuts in the sponge or alternatively use desecated coconut instead of the nuts. Make a coffee nut sponge with 1-2 tsp of instant coffee dissolved in a few drops of boiling water. To make coffee icing, add this coffee `essence' to the icing. Instead of adding sugar syrup to the icing, experiment with orange juice/rum.

CHOCO GANACHE ROSEFFES

Ingredients (For Shortcrust Pastry): Flour, 100 gms; butter (chilled, diced), 50 gms; yolk of one egg; cold water, 1 tbs.

For Choco Ganache: Chopped bitter chocolate, 150 gms; cream, 60 ml; yolk of two eggs; softened butter, 50 gms; rum to flavour (optional).

Method: To make the pastry, sieve the flour into a chilled bowl. Rub in the chilled butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. Add the egg yolk and enough water to form a firm, not dry or sticky, dough. Knead lightly on a floured surface until it turns smooth.

Wrap the dough in butter paper and let it chill for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Roll it out on a floured surface (to prevent sticking), until it is one-eighth of an inch thick. Stamp out circles, each with a diameter of an inch, or alternatively use small petit four tin moulds, if available. Place circles on a baking sheet and bake in a pre-heated oven (190oC/ Gas No. 5/375oF).

To Make the Ganache: Place the chocolate in a bowl with the cream, and melt over a double boiler. While it is still warm, beat in the egg yolk, and then the softened butter one teaspoon at a time. Flavour with rum, if desired.

Let the combination chill. When the ganache is firm, either spread it onto the pastry circles, or fill into a rosette nozzle, and practise your piping skills with the ganache, aiming for a neat whirl of chocolate. During summer, keep these sweet meals chilled. Decorate with chopped pistachios, or, if you are feeling rather extravagant, a hint of silver leaf.

(Roopa Gulati is a cordon bleu chef with The Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi.)

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.