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Palmiers

By Manali

Apr 29, 2015, Updated May 07, 2023

Flaky, buttery Palmiers are perfect little treats to enjoy with your coffee!

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EFegg-freeNFnut-free

When life throws you some puff pastry, you obviously make palmiers! Yay! Well at least that is what I did after I made this puff pastry dough. The fact is that I wanted to use my homemade puff pastry as soon as possible and didn’t want to slog in the kitchen for hours. You know as much as I love my time in the kitchen, there are days when I want to create something quick. And so when I made this puff pastry, the first thing I could think of was these little beautiful treats called palmiers.

I often saw these at french bakeries and thought these would be so difficult to make. I mean how do we get that butterfly/heart shape. Yeah palmiers are also known as butterfly/elephant ears/french hearts because of their shape. But looks can be so deceiving because these treats are so super simple to make. I learnt to make them at the French Pastry Class at Sur La Table and I was amazed by how quickly it all came together, like literally in minutes especially when you already have puff pastry ready on hand.

These little hearts are all butter and caramel, so perfect with a cup of coffee. In fact you can serve them with ice cream, mousse or any other dessert. But if you ask me, I ate a lot of them just like that. 1-2-3 gone! They are little hard to resist. I think the best part about this french pastry is that you only need 2 ingredients to make this – puff pastry and some sugar.

Talking of sugar I used regular granulated white sugar here, but I think superfine caster sugar will work even better. In India, the sugar we use at home has such huge crystals so that is not going to work in this recipe. Try to get your hands on some super fine sugar before you make these and I bet the result will be even better.

Oh I also think cinnamon would be so good here. Can you believe it I ran out of ground cinnamon when I made these? Me, the cinnamon addict ran out of cinnamon! I swear I know I had a huge bottle of cinnamon powder in my pantry but it has magically disappeared. However I am not surprised looking at the state of my baking cabinet. It is seriously a mess with 76539028172 things inside 2 tiny cabinets! Anyway what I wanted to say is that you can add cinnamon here because you can honestly never go wrong with it. Just mix it with sugar before sprinkling on the puff pastry and now on to the palmiers recipe!

Method

Thaw your puff pastry sheet. I used my homemade puff pastry sheet which was in the refrigerator so I just kept it at the counter for around 15-20 minutes or till it could be rolled easily. Roll the sheet into a square. Trim the edges to make it even from all the sides.

Now comes the fun part, take sugar and sprinkle generously all over the puff pastry. Be extra generous here, sugar is important so sprinkle lots.

Flip and cover the other side with sugar too. An easy way to do this is sprinkle sugar on your work surface (a little away from where your puff pastry is) and then gently lift your pastry dough and place it over that sprinkled sugar surface. You can flip the sides to see if there’s enough sugar.

Now fold the pastry to mark the center, just mark it using your finger. Start folding from one side. We will do 2 folds from each side and will leave a little space in the center between the two folds in the end because ultimately we have to fold it in a log. So do the 1st fold from one side.

And then the 2nd fold, ending slightly away from the center.

Repeat the same 2 fold process from the other end, ending slightly away from the center.

And finally roll one fold on top of the other and form a log.

Trim the edges so that you can get clean pieces. Wrap in a cling sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes or till it’s firm. It’s easier to cut this way!

Once the puff pastry is firm, take it out and cut into 1/2-1 centimeter pieces. The thinner you cut them the crispier the palmiers will be.

Once you have cut all the palmiers, start rolling each in sugar. Roll from both sides.

After you have rolled the palmiers, take each and shape them a little by pulling the two ends slightly away from each other as you can see in the picture.

Repeat the same with all the cookies and then place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone mat.

Bake at 400 F degrees for 15-16 minutes, flipping them once at the half way mark. Please remember to flip at half time else they won’t get properly baked from both sides.

Let the palmiers cool down and then store in an airtight container. Enjoy with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate!

* I sprinkled more sugar on top of the palmiers after they were baked for photography purposes only. You don’t need to do that.

* The preparation time includes the time for which the dough is chilled before cutting into desired shape.

Palmiers Recipe

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By Manali

Servings: 30 palmiers

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Flaky, buttery Palmiers are perfect little treats to enjoy with your coffee!

Ingredients 

1x2x3x

• ▢ 1 sheet puff pastry [homemade or store bought]
• ▢ ¾ cup fine granulated white sugar [superfine is better]

Instructions 

• Thaw your puff pastry sheet and roll it into a square. Trim the edges to make it even from all the sides.
• Take sugar and sprinkle generously all over the puff pastry. Be extra generous here, sugar is important so sprinkle lots.
• Flip and cover the other side with sugar too. An easy way to do this is sprinkle sugar on your work surface (a little away from where your puff pastry is) and then gently lift your pastry dough and place it over that sprinkled sugar surface. You can flip the sides to see if there's enough sugar.
• Now fold the pastry to mark the center, just mark it using your finger. Start folding from one side. We will do 2 folds from each side and will leave a little space in the center between the two folds in the end because ultimately we have to fold it in a log.
• And then the 2nd fold, ending slightly away from the center.
• Repeat the same 2 fold process from the other end, ending slightly away from the center.
• And finally roll one fold on top of the other and form a log.
• Trim the edges so that you can get clean pieces. Wrap in a cling sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes or till it's firm. It's easier to cut this way!
• Once the puff pastry is firm, take it out and cut into 1/2-1 centimeter pieces. The thinner you cut them the crispier the palmiers will be.
• Preheat your oven to 400 F degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone mat. Set aside.
• Once you have cut all the palmiers, start rolling each in more sugar. Roll from both sides.
• After you have rolled the palmiers, take each and shape them a little by pulling the two ends slightly away from each other. [see picture above]
• Repeat the same with all the cookies and then place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone mat.
• Bake at 400 F degrees for 15-16 minutes, flipping them once at the half way mark. Please remember to flip at half time else they won't get properly baked from both sides.
• Let the palmiers cool down and then store in an airtight container.
• Enjoy with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate!

Nutrition

Calories: 64kcal, Carbohydrates: 8g, Fat: 3g, Sodium: 20mg, Potassium: 4mg, Sugar: 5g, Calcium: 1mg, Iron: 0.2mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: French

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 Palmiers