Contents
Puff pastry rolled in sugar, folded to a palm-leaf shape, sliced and baked until the sugar caramelises into glass. Two ingredients, one of which is a pastry that takes a day to make — which is why the palmier is the standard test of whether a bakery makes its own puff or buys it in.
They are also the best possible use for pastry trimmings, which is how they were invented.
What makes it work
- Sugar replaces flour on the bench. Roll the pastry out on granulated sugar, not flour. The sugar embeds in the surface, melts, and caramelises under the pastry as it bakes — that lacquered underside is the whole cookie.
- The fold is four turns inward, not a spiral. Fold each long edge to the centre, fold again to meet, then close like a book. A spiral rolled palmier unwinds in the oven.
- Freeze the log before slicing. 30 minutes in the freezer, then slice 1 cm thick with a sharp knife. Warm pastry squashes and the layers weld shut.
- Space them very widely and flip them once. They double in width. At the halfway point turn each one over so both faces caramelise, using tongs and accepting that molten sugar is genuinely dangerous.
- Line with parchment, never a bare tray. The sugar that runs out welds to metal.
Ingredients
Makes about 24.
- 500 g all-butter puff pastry — see laminated dough
- 200 g granulated sugar
- 3 g fine salt
- optional: 1 tsp ground cinnamon, or the seeds of a vanilla pod
Method
Mix the sugar with the salt and any spice. Scatter a third of it on the bench, set the pastry on top, scatter another third over, and roll to a rectangle about 30 × 40 cm and 4 mm thick, pressing sugar into both faces as you go.
Fold the two long edges in to meet at the centre. Fold each side in to the centre again. Then fold one half onto the other, as though closing a book. You now have a six-layer log.
Freeze 30 minutes. Slice 1 cm thick, lay the slices cut-face down with 6 cm between them, and press each one gently flat.
Bake 200 °C / 400 °F for 10 minutes, then flip each palmier and bake 6–8 minutes more, until both sides are deep amber. Cool on a rack — they are soft until the caramel sets.
Notes
- Underbaking is the usual mistake. A pale palmier is a soggy palmier. Take them past the colour that feels comfortable.
- Savoury versions swap the sugar for grated parmesan, spices or tapenade and bake at 200 °C without the flip.
- The same cookie is sold as an elephant ear, a pig's ear, and in France sometimes as a coeur de France.
- Best the day they are baked. The caramel goes tacky by day two.
Elsewhere on the site
Method and theory: Cookie recipes · cookies · laminated dough · pastry
Nearby: rugelach · tuiles · hamantaschen