Around the time I finished high school I worked at a French Bakery (La Batelle) in Bellevue Square. Every morning I’d arrive to the great smell of fresh breads and pastries. One of my favorite treats was a warm palmier. These cookies are crisp, sweet, and have a slight caramel undertone. One thing I didn’t learn at the bakery is how much better the homemade version of these are in comparison to the common bakery version. Seriously yummy.
The recipe and detailed instructions are at the end of this post. For this recipe, all we need is five ingredients; bread flour, butter, sugar, salt, and water. Looks like we have it all. Ready, set, bake…
We’re going to start by making a quick puff pastry, which is similar to pie dough, only the butter is left in thicker pieces that will fold, to create the lamination, without multiple rest periods.
Place the flour in a mixing bowl with the dough hook attachment. Cut the butter into two-inch pieces, add to the flour on low speed until slightly larger than pea size pieces of butter remain. Dissolve the salt into the water.
Add the salt water to the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Shape dough into a square and allow to rest for ten minutes. The dough will feel rather dry at this stage, resting will allow the moisture to incorporate into the flour.
Roll the dough out to half an inch thick in the shape of a rectangle. Give the dough three single turns (one complete single turn is illustrated in the first three images above), followed by one double turn (illustrated in the last three images above).
Roll the dough in the sugar, using the sugar on the top and the bottom to keep it from sticking. Be sure to turn the dough as your rolling and spread more sugar underneath and on top of the dough. Roll to a rectangle 24 x 12 inches (60 x 30 cm) and 1/8 (3 mm thick). Trim the dough to this shape.
With the dough placed horizontally in front of you fold the long sides of the rectangle in to meet the center. Fold in crosswise to bring the two short sides together on the right side. Using a rolling pin or dowel, make a deep indentation down the center horizontally. Fold along this indent and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Cut the folded strip into 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick strips. Place the cookies on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
Bake at 425°F (219°C) until the sugar starts caramelizing, about eight minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and turn each cookie over using a spatula. Return the pan to the oven for three to four minutes, until the cookies top have started to caramelize.
Recipe: Palmier
Adapted from The Professional Pastry Chef: Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry, 4th Edition
Yield: 45 cookies
Ingredients
- 14 1/2 ounces (411 g) bread flour
- 14 1/2 ounces (411 g) cold unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup + 2 teaspoons water
- 8 ounces (225 g) granulated sugar
Instructions
- Place the flour in a mixing bowl using the dough hook attachment.
- Cut the butter into two-inch pieces, add to the flour on low speed until slightly larger than pea size pieces of butter remain.
- Dissolve the salt into the water and add to the flour mixture until just combined.
- Shape dough into a square and allow to rest for ten minutes.
- Roll the dough out to half an inch thick in the shape of a rectangle. Give the dough three single turns, followed by one double turn.
- Roll the dough in the sugar, using the sugar on the top and the bottom to keep it from sticking. Be sure to turn the dough as your rolling and spread more sugar underneath and on top of the dough. Roll to a rectangle 24 x 12 inches (60 x 30 cm) and 1/8 (3 mm thick). Trim the dough to this shape.
- With the dough placed horizontally in front of you fold the long sides of the rectangle in to meet the center. Fold in crosswise to bring the two short sides together on the right side. Using a rolling pin or dowel, make a deep indentation down the center horizontally. Fold along this indent and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Cut the folded strip into 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick strips. Place the cookies on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
- Bake at 425°F (219°C) until the sugar starts caramelizing, about eight minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and turn each cookie over using a spatula. Return the pan to the oven for three to four minutes, until the cookies top has started to caramelize. Cool and serve.
10 Comments
yumm anything with butter taste so heavenly good 😉
Jeff – I can’t wait to try these! I love to cook as well – I didn’t realize you had this wonderful Blog. You rock! Thank you for sharing. Love, Lois
Lois – these are really easy to make too – and they keep well too (I had them for a good week and they didn’t go stale). Thanks for the complement! Hope all is going well with you and Kim:)
Especially when its almost 50% butter! LOL – for all their simplicity are really good.
Pretty cookies! I am glad you keep posting even though your class is over. It is an awesome blog!
Thanks! I had a cold so Im a little behind in the posting… Im planning on taking the second half of the class this fall (it all depends on work, but I’d like to finish so I can get my Pastry Chef certificate).
Wow…that would be awesome to be a certified Pastry Chef! Have you thought about owning a bakery or do you just want to do it for the love of it?
Right now its just for the love of it. I would really like to open a coffee shop with a small bakery – but I need to get more experience and time. Opening your own bakery is a lot of work and you have to live there the first couple years. I think I would love it though:)
I tried making these by the way. They just melted all over the place. I tried to convert the flour into cups and must have been off. It was a really tender dough which I thought would be great but I didn’t have enough flour. I used a tip that I got from Alison’s scone recipe and shredded the cold butter so that the dough wouldn’t have to be handled any more than it absolutely had to. Oh well! It was fun to make even though they didn’t turn out.
You don’t have a scale? If your getting melting butter all over the place the problem is most likely that your oven is too cool. Either you did not let it warm up properly before you backed them, or most likely you need to check the temperature on your oven – it may need to be calibrated (my oven runs about 5 degrees cool so I always add 5 degrees). You can get an oven thermometer for about five dollars to check it out.
Also – the butter shredding works great for quick breads like scones, but with laminated breads (puff pastries) you want chunks of butter (or slabs for traditional puff pastry – this recipe uses American Puff Pastry that relies on chunks to create a similar effect) so that when you do the folding and rolling it creates layers of butter and flour (thats what creates the “puff” when it bakes – the steam from the butter pushes up the flour and gives it rise.)