Description
Crispy little heart pastries made from puff pastry sprinkled with what will seem like a lot of sugar. Be not afraid; there’s actually not that much sugar in these incredibly flaky, buttery, simple pastries. If the beautifully caramelized edges and crispy loveliness don’t win you over, you may need to check if you’re okay.
Ingredients
Scale
- 1/3 recipe of puff pastry (about 1 pound) or in a pinch a frozen puff pastry that uses all butter, such as Dufour
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (100 g)
- 2 teaspoons chai spice blend, or pumpkin pie spice, or apple pie spice, or ground cinnamon (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 F (205 C). Line 2 sheet trays with parchment.
- Sprinkle a small amount of flour on a work surface.
- Mix the sugar and spice (if using) in a small bowl. Scatter most of the sugar on the counter.
- Roll out the dough on top of the sugar, pressing the sugar into the dough at every opportunity. Turn the dough over and around on the counter periodically, always making sure there is more sugar to press into the dough. You’re aiming to get one rectangle of dough.
- When the dough is about 1/4” thick sprinkle the top of the dough with more sugar.
Roll along one long side of the dough towards the center as if you were starting to make a cinnamon roll. Stop rolling in the middle of the dough sheet. Roll from the opposite side towards the center to make a heart shape. 
- Sprinkle a cutting board with more of the sugar and then set the log on top of the sugar. Mark out cuts along the log about 1/4″-3/8” in thickness. You should shoot to get about 24 palmiers.
- Cut straight down through the dough along the marks.
- Once you have cut through the dough, take each individual palmier and reroll the rolls back towards the center. This will help neaten up the pastries if they got squashed when you cut them. As you do so, press the cut tops and bottoms of each palmier in sugar.
- Line up the palmiers on the baking sheets, giving them plenty of room to expand as they bake.
- Bake for about 15 minutes, checking for done palmiers at about the 12 minute mark. Move any browned palmiers to a wire rack if they’re done before the rest and then continue to bake the rest. You may flip them over halfway through the baking if you’d like. Depending on your oven and how thick you cut them, they may take a little longer than 15 minutes. What you’re looking for is brown edges and crispy bottoms.
- Let the palmiers cool completely on a wire rack. Once cool, you can store palmiers at room temperature for up to 1 week.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Category: Pastry
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: French
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 palmier
- Calories: 90
- Sugar: 4.4 g
- Sodium: 34.9 mg
- Fat: 5.3 g
- Carbohydrates: 9.8 g
- Protein: 0.9 g
- Cholesterol: 13.9 mg