Sweet and Savory Palmiers

Bonjour! Welcome to the delights and ease of palmiers!

While preparing for a French themed party (April in Paris), a friend and I made savory palmiers. We prepared two flavors…mustard and comté as well as an olive tapenade. We used the The Little Paris Kitchen cookbook for the recipe.

Grated comté and a good French cookbook.

We had a package of puff pastry leftover, so I made a quick batch of sweet palmiers. All I used was a sheet of the puff pastry, sugar and cinnamon. These were so easy and so cute that I began to think of all the wonderful things that could be done as either a sweet or savory palmier.

My easy sweet palmiers made a great breakfast bite to go along with coffee. They would be equally at home next to a nice cup of hot tea. Additionally, they could:

Accompany a bowl of vanilla ice cream;
Have a dollop of whipped cream and fresh strawberries perched on top; and
Be used as the top and bottom of an ice cream sandwich, just add a small scoop of vanilla in between.

They could also be a sweet treat by filling with:

A thin layer of Nutella or Biscote spread;
Sugar and grated lemon peel;
Sugar and vanilla paste;
A thin layer of peanut butter and jelly;
Sugar and coco powder;
Grated chocolate and chiffonade mint leaves; or
Sugar and cinnamon, then dip in melted chocolate after baking!

Thinking of palmiers in terms of a savory offering, wouldn’t they be wonderful:

Prepared with just a thin layer of melted butter added to the top side before rolling into shape and baking…served in place of croutons with tomato basil soup;
Made with just the butter, as mentioned above, and served with a small scoop of chicken salad on top of a baked palmier;
Filled with caramelized onion and grated gruyere cheese, then roll and bake as usual;
Filled with thin slices of swiss cheese and ham before rolling and baking;
Thinly spread with a the soft mellowed contents of a baked garlic head, then covered in grated parmesan, roll and bake as usual;
Filled with spinach leaves (stems removed) and grated parmesan, roll and bake as usual; or
Thinly spread with Frank’s hot sauce and crumbed blue cheese, then roll and bake…serve a bowl of ranch on the side…buffalo palmiers, anyone?

The ideas are limitless. Just use your favorite sweet or savory combinations to make a filling, topping and/or dip.

To make cinnamon sugar palmiers, you will need:

1 package of puff pastry dough, thawed according to package directions
Half a cup of sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a sheet pan with a Silpat, silicon liner, or parchment in a sheet pan.

Put a sheet of wax or parchment paper on your counter top. Spread out 1/4 cup sugar. Place a sheet of dough on top.

Sprinkle the remaining sugar and cinnamon on the dough. Cover evenly.

Put a second sheet of wax or parchment paper over the dough. Roll so that the sugar gets embedded in the dough. The dough will get slightly larger from rolling, but that is not necessarily the point.