MAISON DE KENNEDY

Palmiers

🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍 (0/5) Tested by Cass — 1 hr · Makes ~24

Not made these yet — no rating.

The easiest impressive thing you can make with puff pastry. Roll a sheet, coat in sugar, fold both long edges into the middle until they meet, slice, bake. The sugar caramelises between the layers and you get crunchy, glossy, slightly buttery hearts. Elephant ears in English, palmiers — palm leaves — in French, for the shape. Either way, addictive. Two versions here: classic, and a cinnamon one for Shawn.

Ingredients

Classic

• 1 sheet Puff Pastry — ~30 × 30 cm, 3 mm
• 1 cup Granulated Sugar — more than you think
• Pinch Flaky Sea Salt

Cinnamon Version

• 1 sheet Puff Pastry — ~30 × 30 cm, 3 mm
• ¾ cup Granulated Sugar
• 2 tbsp Brown Sugar — for warmth
• 2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
• Pinch Ground Cardamom — optional, makes it sing
• Pinch Flaky Sea Salt

Method

1. Sugar the bench, not flour: Sprinkle your work surface with a thick layer of sugar. The sugar is the rolling surface here — it presses into the pastry from below. For the cinnamon version, mix the sugars, cinnamon, cardamom and salt first and use that mix everywhere the classic uses plain sugar.
2. Sheet the puff to ~3 mm, roughly a 30 × 30 cm square, and lift it onto the sugared surface.
3. Sugar the top generously, plus the pinch of salt. Press lightly with the rolling pin (or one more sheeter pass on the lowest setting) so it sticks.
4. The fold: Mark the centre with a finger dent. Fold each long edge inward halfway to the centre. Fold each edge in again so the two edges meet exactly at the middle line. Then fold the whole thing closed like a book along that line. Four folds total — you'll have a long log with a flat back.
5. Chill 30 minutes, wrapped. Firms the butter so you get clean slices.
6. Slice 1 cm thick. Lay flat on parchment-lined trays, 5 cm apart — they spread.
7. Bake: 200°C / 400°F for 10–12 minutes. Cinnamon caramelises a touch faster, so check that version at 9–10.
8. Flip and finish: Turn each one with a spatula and bake 3–5 minutes more until both sides are deeply caramelised golden.
9. Cool on the tray — they crisp as they cool. Eat within 2 days or store in a tin.

Notes

• The flip matters. Skip it and you get pale, soft-bottomed palmiers. Flip and you get two glossy caramelised sides and proper bakery crunch. Don't skip it.
• More sugar than feels right. A full cup for one sheet sounds excessive; it isn't. The sugar is the structure and the glaze, not a garnish.
• Pecan upgrade: finely chopped pecans pressed into the top before folding turns the cinnamon version into a flaky cinnamon-roll/sticky-bun hybrid. Dangerous.
• One batch, two people happy — classic and cinnamon use the same sheet size and the same method, so they can be made back to back.

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