Palmiers

Pop quiz time.

What do you get when pure idleness meets intensive sweet-tooth craving?

Mac n cheese with chopped jelly beans garnished on top?? Uh... no. You can tell my hands have been in that Kraft stuff all day.

Brownies with fudge sauce?? No again. Too much work. Not idle enough.

Apparently I will have to reveal the answer to you: PALMIERS!

Oh mercy, they have been on my to-bake list for some time now. Some time going on three years, perhaps.

And oh, how very. Very. I repeat. Very very easy they are to whip out. Children, people.....children of pre-puberty years could nail these out in the sheet fulls.

It's again, another beautiful creation made possible by puff pastry dough- like this one. Puff pastry was made for people like me-people who love to bake but sometimes don't find the time or are flat out too lazy to whip it out. Puff pastry is for people who want pretty without having to put in their entire life savings account into buying all the real butter required for making pastry dough from scratch.

Palmiers, are simply the crispiest, most buttery and flaky cookie I've ever eaten- coated in sugar. Plus I felt so European not only making them but having them around my kitchen as if I was bustling my own little French bakery shop. And I would love to be French. In the next life I will speak it. Snobbishly and with spit flying.

Here, you will find an easy tutorial on how to make Palmiers, or, elephant ears... but I'll go ahead and give ya some instructions anyways right here. Good luck!

Palmiers

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed

Lots of granulated sugar (1 cup to begin with)

Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper (or alternatively, grease well).

Sprinkle sugar all over work surface. Using a rolling pin, roll out thawed dough to an 8/10 inch x 12 inch rectangle on top of sugar. Sprinkle more sugar all over the puff pastry so that it’s entirely coated (but not too thickly- just an even, thin layer of sugar). Now, roll up each short side towards the very middle of the pastry— press gently together. Cover with wrap and refrigerate for an hour or two, or until very cold.

Remove from fridge and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice with a very sharp knife in 1/2” slices. Place on sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes or until just golden brown (they do burn quickly, as I found out with my first pan, so watch most carefully!). Mine were done in 11 minutes flat. Once they come out of the oven, they must must must must be removed from the pan. Quick science lesson- oozing, melting hot sugar hardens quickly when met at room temperature. Puff pastry glued to the sheet pan because of hardened sugar is not a fun or easy predicament to clean up. I learned this the hard way too.

Good luck! Fun, elegant, and crunchy-buttery-sugary cookie.