Palmiers

As long as I've known Ryan, Palmiers have been one of his favorites, so I was really excited to make him this recipe. Palmiers are classic French cookie named after their resemblance to palm fronds—although I've always heard them referred to as Elephant ears. The recipe started by rolling out quick puff pastry dough in a generous amount of sugar instead of flour. Once I had the dough in a 10x6" rectangle, the next step was to mark out the lines where the dough would be folded. I used a ruler and a bench scraper to divide the dough in half, and mark 2" intervals on each side. The dough was then rolled in towards the center, with each fold meeting the marked line to create a heart-like tube when the dough was completely folded. After chilling for 30 minutes, I sliced the dough, rolled the cookies in sugar, and placed them in a 375-degree oven. A good Palmier has a caramelized glass-like coating, so once the edges began to brown, I flipped each cookie over and continued to bake them until they were a dark golden brown. The finished Palmiers were fantastic--they were crispy, complex, and just sweet enough. Ryan loved the Palmiers, as evidenced by him dusting off an entire plate in the span of one football game. I'll definitely be making these again...

Coming soon: Napoleons (my all-time favorite pastry!)