Palmiers - Sweet and Savory

I "borrowed" another recipe from my friend Debs' food blog Girl and Her Spoon. This was one of her childhood favorites and I can see why. I have always loved Palmiers, all flaky and sweet, with good cup of coffee, and now with the ease of this recipe, I am sure we will have them more often. I did a couple of experiments with the recipe. I made both a sweet (cinnamon and sugar) and a savory (pesto, sun dried tomatoes, and pecorino) version of the treat and I worked with the puff pastry differently for each version. First the recipe, and then what I learned. I'll quote Debs' recipe and then explain how I did things.

Palmier (easy version)

1 sheet of puff pastry
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cinnamon
1 egg, beaten

Spread the sheet out. Brush egg wash on one side and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Turn over and do the same to the other side. Take one side of the puff pastry and roll it to the center. Take the other side and roll it to the center. Wrap in parchment paper and put in the freezer for about 10 minutes to harden. Don't unravel, but cut the log into 1/2 inch heart-shaped pieces. Brush tops with egg wash and sprinkle again with sugar and cinnamon. Bake according to puff pastry box directions. Keep an eye on them so they brown and don't burn!

**This can easily be savory by swiping pesto instead of egg and adding Parmesan cheese to the inside and on top of the cookies (before you bake). Really, add anything you think could taste yummy!


I used one sheet of the pastry (they usually come two to a pack) for the sweet. I simply defrosted and followed the recipe exactly (just unfolding the pastry sheet, but not rolling it out), although I didn't measure anything, I just sprinkled away. For the savory, I did indeed swap pesto for the egg wash, and then I added chopped up sun dried tomatoes and a healthy sprinkling of pecorino (obviously you could use parmesan, etc.). However, with the savory batch, I folded up the thawed sheet and then re-rolled it out to a rectangle about 10" by 14". As you can probably see from the photos, the savory batch that had been folded and rolled puffed up into larger treats. The sweet batch that was just a thawed sheet still made pretty cookies but they were smaller. I think I actually like the taste of the sweet ones better - perfect with coffee on a weekend morning, but the savory was good too. I would only add the tomatoes to the interior side next time, the ones on the outside burned a bit and I ended up knocking most of them off. I will definitely keep experimenting - roll out the sweet version and see if they grow, maybe try a little mexican chocolate and cayenne.