When I needed another dainty cookie to serve to an international visitor at the office, I decided to try a recipe for "Cinnamon Palmiers" from epicurious.com. These palmiers are made from rough puff pastry. Event though making rough puff is simpler than making regular puff pastry, the recipe still takes a fair amount of time. I spent a Sunday afternoon on the project.
To make the dough, you combine flour and salt; add grated frozen butter and toss to coat; drizzle over ice water; and stir until the dough holds together. You shape the dough into a square and chill it. The dough requires three turns; each time you roll it out into a rectangle, fold it into thirds, chill, and repeat. After the last turn you divide the dough in half and chill both portions.
Once the dough is finally ready, you sprinkle your work surface with cinnamon sugar and roll out each portion of dough on top of the sugar. The recipe says to roll each piece of dough into a 12-inch by 16-inch square, but I just couldn't manage it. I rolled my dough as thin as I could and I could only get it to a 10-inch by 12-inch size. I sprinkled more cinnamon sugar on top, folded the long sides of the pastry into the center, folded in the outer edges to the center again, and then folded one half of the dough over the other, creating a compact log with eight layers of dough sandwiched around cinnamon sugar.
After another chilling period in the fridge, I sliced the logs into thin cookies (I was about to get 6 dozen from the recipe) and baked them on parchment-lined pans. Halfway through the baking time, I took the trays of cookies out of the oven; flipped each cookie over; and re-formed the palmier shape, because the cookies puffed quite a bit during baking and began to unroll.
These cookies were quite small - just one or two bites each - but they were beautifully elegant. You could clearly see the many puffed layers in the pastry. And the palmiers tasted so good. They were delicate, crisp, caramelized, buttery, sweet, and warmly flavored with cinnamon. And even though I baked the palmiers two days in advance, their texture did not deteriorate at all.
Because these cookies are both so small and so delicious, it's easy to eat them by the handful; even though the recipe yields six dozen palmiers, those aren't necessarily going to go very far. Next time I think I'll make a double batch!
Recipe: "Cinnamon Palmiers" from epicurious.com.
Previous Post: "Baked Sunday Mornings: Election Palmiers," November 9, 2014.
To make the dough, you combine flour and salt; add grated frozen butter and toss to coat; drizzle over ice water; and stir until the dough holds together. You shape the dough into a square and chill it. The dough requires three turns; each time you roll it out into a rectangle, fold it into thirds, chill, and repeat. After the last turn you divide the dough in half and chill both portions.
Once the dough is finally ready, you sprinkle your work surface with cinnamon sugar and roll out each portion of dough on top of the sugar. The recipe says to roll each piece of dough into a 12-inch by 16-inch square, but I just couldn't manage it. I rolled my dough as thin as I could and I could only get it to a 10-inch by 12-inch size. I sprinkled more cinnamon sugar on top, folded the long sides of the pastry into the center, folded in the outer edges to the center again, and then folded one half of the dough over the other, creating a compact log with eight layers of dough sandwiched around cinnamon sugar.
After another chilling period in the fridge, I sliced the logs into thin cookies (I was about to get 6 dozen from the recipe) and baked them on parchment-lined pans. Halfway through the baking time, I took the trays of cookies out of the oven; flipped each cookie over; and re-formed the palmier shape, because the cookies puffed quite a bit during baking and began to unroll.
Because these cookies are both so small and so delicious, it's easy to eat them by the handful; even though the recipe yields six dozen palmiers, those aren't necessarily going to go very far. Next time I think I'll make a double batch!
Recipe: "Cinnamon Palmiers" from epicurious.com.
Previous Post: "Baked Sunday Mornings: Election Palmiers," November 9, 2014.
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