Palmiers
Puff pastry rolled in sugar, folded into a heart and baked until the sugar caramelises on both faces. Three ingredients, one of which is optional.
Photograph credit: Palmeras de hojaldre 1 (image of palmier on Wikidata Q2096475) by jytyl · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Before You Start
Roll in sugar, never flour.
Turn them halfway so both faces caramelise.
They go from bronze to burnt in under a minute.
Photograph credit: Genji Pie by 毒島みるく · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Cooking Palmiers
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Mix the sugar with the salt and cinnamon and scatter a thick layer over the work surface.
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Lay the pastry on it, scatter more sugar over the top, and roll out to a 30 x 40 cm rectangle, using sugar and never flour to stop it sticking.
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Fold both long edges in to meet at the centre, then fold them in again to meet in the middle a second time.
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Fold one half over the other, like closing a book, to make a six-layer log.
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Wrap and refrigerate 60 minutes until firm.
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Cut into 1 cm slices and lay them cut-side up on lined trays, well spaced — they double in width.
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Bake at 200°C / 400°F for 12 minutes, turn each one over, and bake 8 minutes more until deeply caramelised on both sides. Watch them closely at the end.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Why the Method Works
The pastry is rolled out in sugar instead of flour, which is what makes this work — the sugar gets pressed into the surface of the dough and caramelises against the tray. Flouring the bench and sprinkling sugar on afterwards gives you a much paler, less crisp biscuit. They are also turned halfway through baking so both faces caramelise, and they burn from perfectly bronzed to black in under a minute.
After You've Cooked It
A week in an airtight tin. They lose their crispness in humidity. The raw log freezes for 2 months.
Good With
- Coffee
- Tea
- Vanilla ice cream
Common Questions About Palmiers
How long does Palmiers take to make?
20 minutes of preparation and 20 minutes of cooking, plus 1 hour of chilling the folded log, so allow 1 hour 40 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 12.
Palmiers Nutrition
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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