During the 1800s, an oven was little more than a large stone cabinet with a fire lit underneath it. Under these circumstances, temperature control was essentially non-existent. As a result, French bakers had only two oven “settings”: blazing hot, and cooling down. The blazing hot setting was reached when the coals under the oven were burning at maximum capacity. This mode of cooking was referred to as “grand four” – literally, “big oven” – and was used to cook meats. Once the fire under the stone oven was extinguished, much of the heat was retained. Consequently it took a very long time for these ovens to cool down. This cooling process, when the oven still retained some latent heat, was referred to as petit four. The trapped heat was just enough to cook tiny, individual pastries – which eventually assumed the name of the type of oven they were cooked in.