Introduction
This recipe is 80% about making the dough — the remaining 20% is forming the curled palmier shape. As a result, this is a great recipe to practice making puff pastry because the puff pastry is the star. Technically this recipe can be made using puff pastry or pie dough. While either is delicious, puff pastry is the way to go. The Palmier really showcases the buttery layers of puff pastry (it’s also how it’s traditionally made). Dessert Person provides a “rough” puff pastry method that greatly simplifies the process of forming puff pastry. It’s a fantastic recipe that maintains 95% of the quality and taste of puff pastry with about 50% of the work.
Recipe Outline
| Recipe: Cinnamon Sugar Palmiers | Special Equipment: None |
| Source: Dessert Person | Time: 5 hours |
| Author: Claire Saffitz | Difficulty: 3.5/5 |
| Type: Dessert (Baking) | Score: ★★★☆☆ |
Creating The Dough
Tip 1: Constantly refrigerate as you go to prevent the butter from warming. If you feel the butter warming at any point – just toss everything in the refrigerator. If you really want to go a step beyond that (which almost certainly isn’t necessary) then use a chilled bowl and chilled gloves while you work the dough.
Tip 2: As you grate the butter, toss the shreds with flour mixture. Don’t wait until all of the butter is shredded to toss them all together. This will prevent all of the butter from clumping together and slow down any melting.
Rolling and Folding The Dough
Shaping the Palmier
Tip 1: If you can’t find Demerara sugar to top with, then Turbinado is a good substitute.
Tip 2: Consider rolling out the dough a bit further than specified to help give you more “wiggle room” to get a proper roll. Don’t roll it out too much more though.
Tip 3: It is a bit difficult to roll it sufficiently many times. Consider taping down the other side of the parchment paper to help get a good grip.
Baking the Palmier
Tip: We tried out using a toothpick to help hold the spiral together. It may have helped slightly, but not definitively.
Final Product
Key Takeaways
- Don’t be afraid to refrigerate periodically when things the butter starts to lose its chill.
- Be very precise when rolling. Run through the process in your head before attempting.
- Final Score: 3/5 – The cookies were great, but fell a bit short of the other cookies in Dessert Person. The recipe was, however, a great way to learn Claire’s “rough” puff pastry recipe. I highly recommend this recipe just to learn Claire’s technique. Once you learn to make puff pastry using her technique, you’ll never want to go back to the old way.
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