Palmier, Elephant’s Ear, French Heart…call them what you like, they’re tasty and easy to make.
Ingredients
- Sheets of good quality puff pastry
- Milk
- Sugar
Equipment
- Baking paper
- Baking tray
- Knife
- Pastry brush
- Rolling pin
Method
- Line baking tray with baking paper (no point doing any dishes if you can avoid them!).
- Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius (fan forced or 220 convection).
- Once defrosted, lay out pastry on cutting board (if you line with baking paper the pastry won’t stick)
- Find middle of pastry slice and roll pastry towards this (ie towards the centre of the pastry, like rolling up a carpet).
- Repeat from the other side of the pastry. The two rolls should meet in the middle and you should now have a “log” in the shape of the palmier.
- Using a sharp knife, slice cross sections of the log about 1 to 1.5 cm thick.
- Lay these out on some baking paper and the lay a second sheet on top.
- Using a rolling pin or something similar, lightly beat each palmier to flatten them (which also makes them larger in size). Aim for 0.5 cm thickness. I have found “beating” them lightly works better than using the rolling pin in the conventional manner.
- Place each completed palmier onto the baking tray and glaze by brushing with milk.
- Sprinkle with sugar and place into heated oven.
- Cook until golden and until sugar has caramelised (around 10 to 15 minutes).
- Allow to cool (and crisp up) before serving.
- Want to fancy this up? Dip half each palmier in melted chocolate and if desired also dip in crushed pistachios or pecans. Allow to set before serving.