Palmiers

Week 12

This week's host was Rebekah she choose Palmiers. Recipe on page 456 of our book.

I went through the whole process of baking these pastries before I realized (and read a side note in the book) that Palmiers are the same as Elephant Ears. I always see these at pastry shops. We used to sell them in the bakery at the grocery store, I worked at in high school. I have had them before. The real test was if I could make a flaky dough. One thing I noticed, since we started this baking club, is that making different textures in dough all depends on how it rises, how it's rolled, (number of times) and refrigerated. The ingredients are very similar. Thinking about this makes baking less intimidating.

"THE THINGS YOU CAN LEARN WHEN YOU TRY SOMETHING NEW"

I CAN'T BELIEVE I DID IT!

This recipe turned out great. I followed the recipe exactly and they turned out and tasted the same as I remember. This week was very satisfying. What an accomplishment to bake your first pastry and have it turn out the way it's supposed to. The texture was very enjoyable with a flaky yet moist and soft center. Really good, but I have to say that the butter content in this recipe was scary and will drive me away from making them often. 

Speaking of butter. . .

Here is the three sticks of butter involved in the making of these flaky delightful treats. I ended up rolling my butter out to big so I folded it to fit into the middle of my dough. At this point in the recipe my mouth was not watering at all. How could anything have any other flavor other then butter when more then half the recipe is butter. Well in the end it did. :)

This is how you achieve a flaky puffy pastry.  After wrapping the dough around the butter. Chill, roll out, and fold, as shown above, three times. I read in the book that by doing this it creates paper-thin sheets of butter, and when baked the moisture in the butter evaporates into steam. This causes the layers of dough to puff and separate into more then a hundred flaky delicate layers. There is some knowledge, I bet, everybody didn't know.

Okay so maybe I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I am not really sure. It said to sprinkle half a cup of sugar on the counter, which was done. Then sprinkle the other half a cup of sugar on top as needed to prevent sticking. Mine wasn't sticking at all. As you can see from my picture the first half a cup of sugar wasn't all used and the other half was not used at all. I am happy about using less sugar. The less sugar the better it is for you, right?

I think the recipe forgot to add the chocolate dip, that is a must. This is the way we sold them at the grocery store I worked at, so I had to do it.

Chocolate Recipe:

•  8 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate
• 2 Tablespoons of milk
• 2-4 Tablespoons of butter (I found the more butter the smoother the chocolate.

Microwave all ingredients in 30 second increments until melted, stirring in-between.

So Good! This was my husbands favorite so far and my two year old thought they were cool because I called them "Elephant Ears". Cute! I also sent more then half of them to work with my husband because it wouldn't be good for us to eat them all. His co-workers loved them!

A Tip & A Question:

1.  You can make different flavors of Palmiers. Cinnamon to say one.
2. Can't think of a question right now.