Palmiers (made from scratch): a buttery, flaky pastry with cinnamon rolled inside & coated in sugar on the outside.
I realize a lot of people tend to make these around Christmas time but last month was so busy I didn’t get around to making them & I thought, Hey, better late than never, right?
Funny story about how I almost didn’t get these made this week either. The recipe calls for a pastry blender & I knew that I had one somewhere. I looked through all my kitchen drawers & couldn’t find it. Then I headed to my boxes of stored kitchen equipment & still no luck. I start doubting that I ever really owned one. Then I think No, I’m 99% sure that I have one. I just know I remember using it to make biscuits! So I go through all my kitchen drawers & storage a second time, still nothing. I give up. I go online & start looking at my options for buying a new one. Hmmm, then I’m sitting there wondering if maybe my sister borrowed it. Sure enough I give her a call & she said she had it. Yes! So I retrieve my pastry blender & at last I can make Palmiers! FYI come to find out later from my wise Mother, you can use two knives to achieve the same results as a pastry blender.
I wasn’t really sure what to call these cookies, they have so many different names. The French call them Palmiers or palm leaf cookies but they are also called elephant ear cookies, french hearts, angel wings, shoe-soles & glasses. However after having three people tell me they looked like mustaches, they could also be called mustache cookies. ;)
Here are some of the steps on how to make them:
First you start by cutting the butter into the flour using a pastry blender or two knives. Then you add the sour cream & vanilla mixture & stir it up. Next you divide the dough into 2 equal parts. Wrap it in plastic wrap or seal in a tupperware container & place in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight OR you can put it in the freezer for 25-30 minutes to speed up the process…that’s what I did.
When you take it out of the frig/freezer coat it in sugar & roll it out into a 12″x 5″ rectangle. I’m not very good at rolling out dough to form a perfect shape as you can see but it still worked. I used a ruler to make sure I had the size about right.
Sprinkle cinnamon over the top of the dough, then use can use your hand to spread it out evenly if you want.
Start on one end & tightly roll up the dough so each end meets in the middle. Wrap in plastic wrap & place in the freezer for 30 minutes. (Be careful not to leave it in there longer or your dough will be too hard to cut).
Remove from freezer & cut into 1/2″ slices. Dip each side in sugar to coat. Place on cookie sheet. Bake!
- ½ cup (1 stick) cold butter, cubed
- ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup sour cream
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 tablespoons sugar, divided
- 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided
- Mix sour cream & vanilla together. Set aside. In another mixing bowl, cut butter into flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the sour cream/vanilla.
- In the bowl, knead 6-8 times with your hands or until mixture holds together. Evenly divide dough in half. Shape each half into a ball; flatten slightly. Wrap in plastic wrap; freeze for 25-30mins (or refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight).
- Unwrap one ball. Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons sugar on waxed paper; coat all sides of ball with sugar. Roll into a 12-in. x 5-in. rectangle between two sheets of waxed paper. Remove top sheet of waxed paper. Sprinkle dough with ¾ teaspoon cinnamon.
- Lightly mark where the center of the dough is.
- Starting with a short side, roll up to the center mark. Repeat with other short side. Wrap in plastic wrap; freeze for 30 minutes. Repeat with 2nd ball of dough.
- Pour 2 tablespoons of sugar into a shallow bowl for dipping. Take one roll out of freezer. Unwrap it. Cut into ½-in. slices; dip each side into bowl of sugar. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
- Bake at 375° for 12 minutes or until golden brown. Use a spatula to carefully flip cookies over & bake 5-7 minutes longer or until they start to brown.
Adapted slightly from Taste of Home. (page contains amazon affiliate links)
Katie, these are so cute! And I’m so with you–better late than never! Pinned!
Thanks Michelle! :)
These are definitely mustaches, it would be great for Movember haha