Nutella palmiers are the best of all possible pastry worlds

Nutella palmiers are little puff pastry hearts filled with rich dark chocolate nutella and dipped in sugar and baked until perfect flaky and crunchy.

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While classic palmiers are wonderful, filling them with chocolate is for those days when you want your chocolate with chocolate. Nutella palmiers are quick and easy to make. Shoot, they may be easier to make because of my simple trick for cutting the palmiers.

And though I’m using my vegan homemade Nutella here, you can think of this recipe as a template for any palmier you want to fill with a spread. I’ll point you in the direction of my Raspberry jam, strawberry jam, blueberry jam, apple butter, or pear butter as other delicious options for filling palmiers.

Let’s roll out the sugar!

Nutella Palmiers

What are palmiers?

Palmiers are a French pastry (though other cultures have similar pastries with different names). Palmiers are made of buttery puff pastry and shaped like hearts, palm leaves, or butterflies depending on how you see them. The word “palmier” comes from the French word for palm leaves.

Giant ones are often called elephant ears, but you’ll also see them called pig’s ears.

To make palmiers, usually you roll puff pastry in sugar and then roll them up into their heart shape. While that’s typical, there’s no law against filling your palmiers with a delicious filling like Nutella!

Why you’ll love Nutella palmiers

1. Nutella: Chocolate + hazelnuts is always a win.
2. Flaky puff pastry: So buttery, so airy, so crispy–puff pastry is the queen of flakiness.
3. Easy: These are even easier to make than classic palmiers, needing just 15 minutes to get them into the oven. Rolling them into their shape is fun too, something to make with your kids!

To quote Son #3, “You’re going to have to hide these from me because I could eat like 20 of them in one sitting.”

Helpful equipment for making Nutella Palmiers

1. Rolling pin: use something solid that feels good in your hands.
2. Pizza wheel: A pizza wheel makes quick work of cutting through the pastry. It’s much much easier than a knife. A sharp knife is, of course a totally acceptable substitute.

How a pizza wheel will make your life easier when making palmiers

Typically when you make palmiers, you 1) roll out the puff pastry, 2) roll the palmiers towards the center of the dough to make their shape and 3) cut the palmiers along the length of the dough to form individual palmiers.

That’s all great and wonderful, and the method I use for my classic palmiers, but a knife is not the best tool for palmiers with filling. That’s because the dough gets compressed a little when you cut it as a log. With a filling, that extra compression can squeeze the filling straight out of the palmier.

With a pizza wheel, you can cut the dough into strips once you’ve spread over the filling. From there, you roll up the palmiers into their shape. You get better looking palmiers and no oozing out filling.

How to make your palmiers even tastier

1. Add more Nutella: because of how puff pastry bakes, you’ll only be able to add one layer of Nutella. For even more chocolate hazelnut goodness, spread on a little more on your finished palmier.
2. Serve them with ice cream: I love Italy’s tradition of serving ice cream with a crispy cookie like pizelle. The crispy and the creamy are a perfect match for each other. Check out all my ice cream recipes, but I’m partial to chocolate caramel ice cream or cinnamon ice cream to go with these palmiers.

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