Palmiers are also called pig ears, palm heart or even elephant ear. It’s a french pastry made from puff pastry, rolled in such a way that it’s shaped like a palm leaf. Since it’s Palm Sunday today, we thought we’d make these scrumptious cookies.
To make palmiers, we are going to make puff pastry. You can easily buy the puff pastry, but making it from scratch tastes so much better! And it only takes a few ingredients. I always thought puff pastry looked daunting and I watched in awe on baking competitions at how they could make it, but puff pastry is not as hard as it seems! It takes some patience, but is actually quite easy to make. Puff pastry is a laminated dough without yeast.
Let’s get started!
To a bowl, add flour, salt and butter.
Crumble in butter.
Add enough water to make a shaggy dough.
Press dough flat. Fold dough over and press flat and fold over – do this a few times to build layers. I did this about 4 times. Then I let it rest for 10 minutes.
Next, we will be folding the dough into thirds, however, we ended up not folding it into thirds since I had folded the dough earlier to build layers. Instead, we folded each end over into the centre and rolled the dough. We didn’t want the dough to be tough. Puff pastry can be easily overworked.
I then turned the dough the other way, rolled the dough and my daughter sprinkled it with cinnamon sugar and folded each end over again. We did this twice.
Now to shape it into the palmier. We fold each end in so the ends meet in the middle. Then fold that in half into the centre again. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and fold in half one last time.
We cut it in half. Half, we sliced and cooked right away. These palmiers wanted to fall apart. Place on baking tray carefully. These turned out more light and flaky.
The other half of the dough, we chilled until the first batch was done cooking. Once chilled, they slice a lot easier and did not fall apart once placed on the baking tray. This batch took longer to cook and were a bit more tough and crunchy, but still delicious.
We made some with pie crust too so we could try them out. It’s similar but the puff pastry is much lighter and flakier! So good!
Look at those layers!!
They taste as good as they look!
And they go perfect with a cup of tea! I added lemon zest to my tea – tastes yummy with the cinnamon spiced cookie!
Palmiers
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter — about 10tbsp or just under 1/2 cup
1/2 cup water — may need more
To a bowl, add flour, salt and butter. Crumble in butter. Add enough water to make a shaggy dough. Press dough flat. Fold dough over and press flat and fold over – do this a few times to build layers. Let rest 10 minutes. Fold dough into thirds, roll out into a rectangle. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Fold in thirds, roll. Do this three to four times. To shape the palmier, fold each end in so the ends meet in the middle. Then fold that in half into the centre again. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and fold in half one last time. Slice. Place on baking sheet. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Loosen and let cool.
enjoy from Our City Homestead to yours