Bake 52: Palmiers

Palmiers are a sugary, pastry cookie. They are also known as "elephant ears". I had never heard of them or seen them before, and this was my first time making pastry dough. While it required a lot of pounding, rolling, folding and chilling, the results were more than worth it. This recipe is going to be a stand-by freezer dough for me. The perfect treat to take to a function instead of the regular cookies or brownies.

I made the dough on a Monday, and left it in the freezer until Saturday when we wanted a treat. I didn't read the part about letting the dough thaw a little and learned early on that you really can't just go slicing frozen dough. As you can see, the top three cookies were the first I sliced and they broke apart. I let the dough sit out for a while and soften up a bit, then they sliced perfectly.

Since I'd never seen the finished product, and there weren't any pictures in the book, I wasn't sure quite how brown they were supposed to get, but mine ended up just right. Crispy and caramelized on the edge, flaky on the inside with the perfect shimmery sugar crystals.
My favorite things about this recipe, besides how delicious they are, are how easy it is to freeze the dough and bake them up quickly when you want them, how pretty they look when they're done, and how few ingredients you need to make them.

If you want to try them out or see all the laborious parts I left out so you can be even more impressed with what goes into making pastry dough, head over to Rebekah's blog.

I think I might go bake up the last half of dough in my freezer now . . .