Palmiers are the eye-catchy, heart-shaped and sugary-covered puff pastry that we have all seen in the bakery or in the supermarket.
I love palmiers with tea, coffee, hot chocolate or you can eat them by themselves. Morning, lunch or afternoon – they are the perfect sweet snack that never fails. In addition, you can have them with ice-cream, sundae or with cookies.
The Puff Pastry
Puff pastry is a light, flaky and tender pastry made by mixing flour, water and salt into a dough and adding layers of fat. It is used to make pies, pasties, vol au vents, savouries and desserts.
There are many ways of making puff pastry. Most importantly, the aim is to produce a paste with many alternating layers of dough and fat which rise and form a layered pastry when baked. Specialist bakers and pastry cooks have their own way of making puff pastry. They use different proportions of butter and flour. However, it differs in the way they incorporate the butter and the number and type of folds they make to the pastry.
First a dough is made using a little dough fat and then more fat is added between the dough layers. Secondly, the dough and fat are then laminated, which involves folding and rolling the dough and fat a few times to make many layers of dough and fat. The fat stays as separate layers and does not mix into the dough.
The Sugar
Do you ever ask yourself what type of sugar is best to use in cooking? There are different types of sugar depending on the colour, the way is extracted and the size of the crystals. From the molasses sugar to the caster, granulated, demerara and muscovado sugar. All those could be white, light brown or dark in colour, or refined and unrefined – based on the way of extraction. But the most popular is the granulated refined sugar. It comes in white and light brown crystals. For instance, the most widely used sugar in baking is the caster sugar. It is especially great for super-light, refined sponges such as genoise, meringues or cakes and brownies.
Homemade Palmiers
Ingredients
- 2 sheets Puff defrosted pastry
- 1 cup Sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 210°C~410°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.Â
- Sprinkle ¼ cup of sugar over a flat surface and unfold one of the puff pastry sheet onto the sugar.
- Roll out the pastry and sprinkle another ¼ cup of sugar over the dough. Roll gently with rolling pin so the sugar is pressed into the puff pastry.
- Turn the dough over so both sides are covered with sugar and fold the outside of the pastry toward the centre. Do that second time so both sides have four layers of pastry. Fold the pastry in half to form a heart shape with eight layers.Â
- Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into about ½ inch thick slices and lay each slice on the baking sheet within ½-1 inch space between.
- Repeat the process with the second sheet.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the palmiers are golden brown. Allow them to cool down for 10-15 mins and serve.
- Bon Appetit!