Bake 52 Rewind: Week #12 Palmiers

The first time I looked at this recipe I saw that it required puffed pastry dough and sugar.  I saw that I didn't need to buy anything to make it and put it out of my mind.  Then when it was time to make it I read through the puffed pastry recipe.  I've made it before (at least something very similar) and I remembered it was kind of long (not hard) but didn't remember that it takes about 10 hours! 

 

So I didn't have time to make it the weekend I'd originally planned.  I decided I'd see if I could find puff pastry at the grocery store instead of making it.  Last weekend was my week to drive an hour to a "big" city to stock up so I was optimistic that I'd find it. 

 

Sure enough I found a pound of puff pastry at the store.  I thawed it out overnight in the frig and then got ready to make it.  That's when I read the recipe again and found the comment, "Don't substitute store-bought puff pastry here; these cookies depend on the buttery flavor of homemade puff pastry."  I thought to myself, "Crap... I wish I'd read that sooner!"  Since I had a pound of puffed pastry (about half the amount the recipe makes) already thawed and no idea what else I would do with it I decided to go ahead and make the cookies with the store bought dough.   

 

I used my pastry cloth to roll out the dough in the sugar.



I decided to just use the full sugar amount.  About a week ago I was at a Stake Relief Society meeting and they had served palmiers and sherbet for dessert.  Their palmiers were a bit bland to me, definitely not sweet enough for my taste.  I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a bit extra sugar...

There are two sheets of pastry in the 1 pound package.  I decided to press them together to make one long sheet, only one thickeness. 

Then I sprinkled another half cup of sugar over the dough.

Lastly I used my rolling pin to try and press the sugar into the dough both on the top and the bottom. 

Then I carefully rolled it up.  I did one side for a little while and then worked on the other side.  I had noted the half way point on the measurements of my mat so that I wouldn't end up with one side significantly bigger than the other.  As I rolled if I saw sections of the dough that looked a little bare I would scoop up some of the sugar that was left behind on the mat onto that section.

It was awkward but I managed to get the roll wrapped in plastic and on a cookie sheet without it unrolling too much.  It was too long for my cookie sheet but it seemed to work okay. 

After 20 minutes in the freezer I pulled it back out and sliced it up.  I ended up with 25 little cookies.  It wasn't really frozen at all so a couple of them unwrapped a bit. 

After 15 minutes in the oven they looked like this. 

I pulled them out and flipped them.  The underside was already considerably browner.

I put them back in the oven for about 5 more minutes. 

I let them rest for about 20 minutes before I dived in.  To be honest my expectations weren't too high but these are divine! 

They were sugary and flaky and carmalized, so yummy!!

And with the 25 cookies they are only 123 calories a piece!  If you can find puff pastry in the freezer section of your grocery store (it's usually by the cool whip, frozen desserts, etc.) I would strongly recommend trying these cookies.  They were so good Jonathan didn't want me to take any to work.  But I knew I'd eat all of them if there were any left at home Monday night so made him a little plate for Monday and took the rest to work. 

For the "real" recipe check out Bekah's blog.