"Palmiers (palm trees) are clever French pastries made by cutting slices from a doubly scrolled sheet of dough." - Quoted in Good Housekeeping Baking book.
Palmiers are usually made with puff pastry sheets and the recipe given uses the method of making the flaky dough to replace the puff pastry sheet. It is almost like a pie crust recipe, but has sour cream in it. The shape I could get is not all that great and with this crazy baking schedule I had today, I had no patience to wait for the dough to firm up. Be sure to read the notes section to see improvisation of this recipe.
One year back - Gingerbread Biscotti
Two years back - Cranberry White chocolate chip bars
Adapted from - Good Housekeeping Baking
Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Butter - 1/4 cup or half a stick (cold cut into cubes)
Shortening - 1/4 cup
Sour cream - 1/4 cup (straight from the refrigerator)
Sugar - 1/3 cup
Method:
In a bowl, take all purpose flour. Add shortening and cold butter into it and work with two knifes or a pastry blender. When the mixture resembles coarse meal with quite a few chunks of butter in it, Add sour cream and mix. Don't over do it and it is alright if it is crumbly. Dump the whole mixture on to a plastic wrap and fold and press with the help of the plastic wrap to form a rectangular or square disc. Refrigerate for 2 1/2 hours or overnight.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll into a square of 10 - 11". Pour sugar on the dough and work it in as much as possible. You can see that I haven't done a great job. I was baking all day and my kitchen was warm and the dough started softening too fast. Make an indentation in the center. Roll from one end tightly till it comes to the center indentation. Repeat the other side so that the spiral meets the center. Press together and refrigerate if it has become too soft and difficult to handle.
Slice the whole log into 1/4" thick slices and bake for 10 minutes. Flip them and bake for another 5 minutes or until both sides are golden. Cool on the baking sheet and store in an air tight container when completely cool. You should get about 2 dozen from this proportion.
Notes:
I had to bake the palmiers 15 minutes and then turn and bake for 8 minutes because of my baking sheet. I was using air bake cookie sheet which conducts heat very slowly. I felt the sugar filling is too much. Even when some of it came out, the remaining amount itself was too much for the dough. When I make it next time, I would use about 3 TBSP of the sugar in the dough and use the remaining of 1/3 cup as filling.
Today is Day 20 of the Bake-A-Thon. Check out these blogs too - Preethi, Veena, Priya. Sending this to Suma's Cookiefest. Linking it up to Kid's delight - Vegan and egg less bakes hosted by Priya, started by Srivalli.
Enjoy.
Palmiers are usually made with puff pastry sheets and the recipe given uses the method of making the flaky dough to replace the puff pastry sheet. It is almost like a pie crust recipe, but has sour cream in it. The shape I could get is not all that great and with this crazy baking schedule I had today, I had no patience to wait for the dough to firm up. Be sure to read the notes section to see improvisation of this recipe.
Two years back - Cranberry White chocolate chip bars
Adapted from - Good Housekeeping Baking
Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Butter - 1/4 cup or half a stick (cold cut into cubes)
Shortening - 1/4 cup
Sour cream - 1/4 cup (straight from the refrigerator)
Sugar - 1/3 cup
Method:
In a bowl, take all purpose flour. Add shortening and cold butter into it and work with two knifes or a pastry blender. When the mixture resembles coarse meal with quite a few chunks of butter in it, Add sour cream and mix. Don't over do it and it is alright if it is crumbly. Dump the whole mixture on to a plastic wrap and fold and press with the help of the plastic wrap to form a rectangular or square disc. Refrigerate for 2 1/2 hours or overnight.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll into a square of 10 - 11". Pour sugar on the dough and work it in as much as possible. You can see that I haven't done a great job. I was baking all day and my kitchen was warm and the dough started softening too fast. Make an indentation in the center. Roll from one end tightly till it comes to the center indentation. Repeat the other side so that the spiral meets the center. Press together and refrigerate if it has become too soft and difficult to handle.
Slice the whole log into 1/4" thick slices and bake for 10 minutes. Flip them and bake for another 5 minutes or until both sides are golden. Cool on the baking sheet and store in an air tight container when completely cool. You should get about 2 dozen from this proportion.
Notes:
I had to bake the palmiers 15 minutes and then turn and bake for 8 minutes because of my baking sheet. I was using air bake cookie sheet which conducts heat very slowly. I felt the sugar filling is too much. Even when some of it came out, the remaining amount itself was too much for the dough. When I make it next time, I would use about 3 TBSP of the sugar in the dough and use the remaining of 1/3 cup as filling.
Today is Day 20 of the Bake-A-Thon. Check out these blogs too - Preethi, Veena, Priya. Sending this to Suma's Cookiefest. Linking it up to Kid's delight - Vegan and egg less bakes hosted by Priya, started by Srivalli.
Enjoy.
Palmiers looks absolutely stunning and quite addictive.
ReplyDeleteThis is a new one for me Champa. These look amazing.
ReplyDeleteThis is quick! Making puff pastry at home has been a dream, made it once with good but not great results. I guess in this recipe sour cream can't be substituted with yogurt?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sending these sugary flaky treats to my event!