30 Days of Christmas: Palmiers

Now that we are squarely in the new year and I am getting to the end of my 30 day blogging marathon, I've started to look into the fridge for leftover holiday ingredients I need to use up. One such exploration in my completely overloaded fridge led to the discovery of a small portion of puff pastry leftover from making mince pies. So I did what every baker does when faced with leftover puff pastry. I made palmiers.

To make these crisp biscuits, thaw the puff pastry in the fridge. Mix 1 tbsp plain flour and 2 tbsp sugar. Granulated or pearl sugar gives the best effect but use caster sugar if that's all you have. Dip the puff pastry block into this flour-sugar mix once to coat all sides, then spread the remaining flour and sugar on the counter. Roll out the pastry to a rectangle, flipping the dough once. The sugar will stick to the dough during the rolling process, which will later give the caramel crunch in the baked palmiers.

Figure out the centre of your rectangle by folding it in half once and opening it back to the rectangle again. Start rolling the short end of the rectangle into a tight cigar. Stop when you hit the centre, then roll from the other side to the centre as well so that you have two rolls meeting in the middle. Run a wet pastry brush along the side of one of the rolls and press it a bit to stick the rolls together.

Cut the log into thin cookies and arrange on a baking sheet. Bake at 200C for 15-20 minutes, until the palmiers are brown and crisp on both sides.

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