Palmier: My Favorite Cookie Recipe

By Constantin Pelletier

When I saw the palm recipe in an old French recipe book, I knew I had to try it out. Days later my parents sent me a pound of French butter from their dairy shop in Denain, a town in northern France, which gave me the idea to make this cookie from scratch. Even though I haven't made palmiers in so long, when I had free time in my hands, I tried these last weekend and I was amazed. They have a very crispy texture, with a very good balance between the savory buttery puff pastry and the sugary flavor. This balance is a very good sign of a successful baking process, especially the golden brown color that comes from sugar caramelization.

Of course there's more to palm trees than just sugar and butter, so I'm going to give you the perfect and most precious recipe for me, palmiers.

When I want to make the perfect palmiers, I keep all my ingredients on hand. I always make sure that the butter is cold and not too warm inside the kitchen, and by the way, don't be afraid to build your own variations with different flavors such as cinnamon, powder ginger and nutmeg, so you can create your own version of my favorite recipe.

Today, I'm sharing a recipe from one of my cookie books. Sugar is added to the puff pastry, then folded in a unique way, then cut into slices to create a shape resembling a palm leaf, hence the name palmiers, meaning palm in French. They are also known as elephant ears.

Sugar is added to the outside of the dough and folded into the shape of a log. Once you bake it, you'll find a nice contrast between the savory crispy pastry and the caramelized sugar.

When it comes to making puff pastry dough, you can expect it to be a little time consuming, but the result is far superior to buying puff pastry dough from the store, unless you can buy a dough made with high quality ingredients from a specialized bakery or gourmet shop, making your own dough is highly recommended.

Palmier Cookie Recipe

Ingredients

Puff Pastry Recipe 1 pound

Granulated sugar ¾ cup

Making the puff pastry

Use this puff Puff Pastry Recipe to build the perfect dough for this cookie. This puff pastry recipe should be made one day in advance, so make sure you take that into consideration because you can't rush this step. Make sure you only make 4 folds or turns as instructed in the recipe, before the next step.

Create 2 additional folds for the puff pastry adding sugar to the work surface instead of flour so that the dough is fully coated, this way we make sure the sugar is folded into the dough. Chill for an hour.

Time to shape the cookies!

Dust the sugar surface and roll the dough into a rectangle until it is about a half inch thin or about 12 by 24 inches long.

Fold a quarter of the longer sides into the middle of the rectangle and then fold them onto themselves once more, kind of like making a log. Freeze for one one hour.

Using a small knife, cut slices that are 1/2 inch thick and place in a baking pan lined with parchment paper. Gently separate the top folds to allow the pastry to expand. Refrigerate for at least an hour to two hours.

Bake in a preheated oven at 375 ° F for about 20 minutes until it stops expanding, then lower the oven to 325 ° F and bake until golden brown and the sugar has caramelized.

Tips: Palmier Cookies tend to burn easily in the oven so be careful and pay attention to them from time to time to make sure they actually come out really nice. However, if they brown too quickly, lower the oven to 325 ° F . If the dough has been overworked and warmed up, refrigerate the cookie dough before continuing to work with it and refrigerate it again before putting it in the oven.