Savory Palmiers
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These Savory Palmiers will be your new favorite puff pastry appetizer. And if you’re worried about making puff pastry for these, rest assured—you can use the frozen version found in the freezer section at the grocery store!
Made with flaky tender laminated puff pastry, shredded parmesan cheese, and just a hint of Italian herbs you’re going to love these crispy cheese palmiers. Serve these Palmiers as a snack or as appetizers. Serve them at parties with this Hot Toddy Recipe if you’re looking for a warm inviting winter pairing.
What are Palmiers?
Palmiers are a type of French pastry now found all around the world. The first time I saw them and had them was in Mexico. They were the size of my head and we bought them in the bakery at the supermercado
Someone in my group called them praying hands and that’s how I always thought of them. BUT apparently, they’re actually called orejas meaning ears.
Around the world, they are called different names and baked in different sizes but they are all essentially the same pastry. Puff pastry rolled with sugar, sliced thin, and baked up crispy. Typically they’re a sweet treat made with cinnamon and sugar, BUT I saw this recipe for Strawberry Palmiers, and they just sound like a sweet and spicy recipe I really want to try!
Savory Palmiers
Savory Palmiers were part of the GBBO in Collection 4 on Netflix in the semifinals for Patisserie Week.
The bakes in the Semi-Finals:
- Signature: Savory Palmiers
- Technical: Savarin Cake
- Showstopper: Mini-Fondant Cakes
I’m not sure about that middle one, is a yeasted cake a patisserie? I just don’t know…
Tips on Making Puff Pastry
Puff pastry is a laminated dough which means it is made up of many layers of dough with butter between them. You get the layers by encasing the butter in a layer of dough completely. And then rolling it out and folding it over, repeat, chill, at least 4 times.
- Keep everything COLD
- start with cold flour
- start with cold butter
- refrigerate between turns of the dough
- if you see butter when rolling the dough sprinkle it with a little flour
- if the dough feels soft or warm put it in the refrigerator
- refrigerate before baking
How to Fold Puff pastry When rolling it out
There are a couple of popular ways to roll out puff pastry.
The Book Fold: essentially you lay the dough long ways in front of you and fold EACH side in half, then fold to meet like a book, rotate the dough 90˚ and repeat before refrigerating. Repeat the whole procedure a minimum of 4 times. You’re getting an extra fold over the letter fold but it makes it a little thicker and trickier to roll out.
The Letter Fold: lay the dough lengthwise in front of you, fold the top third down, the bottom third up, rotate 90˚, roll out, and repeat before refrigerating. Repeat the whole procedure at LEAST 4 times. This method is one less fold but a little easier to roll flat.
How to Replace Homemade Puff Pastry with Store-Bought
For this recipe, you can EASILY substitute store-bought puff pastry. EACH sheet of store-bought puff pastry makes ONE batch of these Savory Palmiers. So each box of puff pastry sheets will make two batches of these palmiers.
Savory Palmiers
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups 240 grams all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 2/3 cup 158m cold water
- 8 ounces 227 grams COLD unsalted butter
Filling
- 1/2 cup (shredded parmesan cheese
- 1/2 tsp Italian Herbs dry mix herb mix
Instructions
- put the flour in a mixing bowl
- stir together the water and salt
- drizzle the water over the flour and stir to combine
- mix by hand until a soft dough forms
- the lift the dough out of the bowl leaving behind any dry clumps
- knead lightly until the dough comes together
- flatten to a 4×4 square, wrap tightly with a plastic bag to keep the air out, refrigerate
- unwrap the cold butter and lay on a lightly floured counter
- bash it with a rolling pin until it’s flat, and form 4×4 inch square, wrap tightly and refrigerate for 10 minutes
- after 10 minutes roll the dough out to an 8×8 square
- lay the butter on the dough and fold the edges in and pinch to seal shut
- flip over, roll out to a rectangle 4 inches wide and 12 inches long either book fold or letter fold, as described above in the post, turn 90˚
- repeat the roll and fold, wrap tightly and refrigerate for 30 minutes
- repeat the folding, rolling X2 refrigerate procedure 5 more times
- then wrap and refrigerate for AT LEAST 4 hours before rolling out, you can also wrap tightly and rest it overnight
- line two baking sheets with parchment
- when you’re ready to bake quickly roll the dough out to a 12X10 rectangle
- sprinkle with the parmesan and herbs, press lightly
- roll each half up to the middle then gently pinch together
- slice the log into 1/4 – 1/3 of an inch slices
- lay the slices an inch apart on the prepared baking sheet, if you need to reset the slices so they look right now is the time to do it
- preheat the oven to 400˚
- put the baking sheets into the refrigerator while the oven preheats
- when the oven is ready put one pan in the oven on the middle rack
- bake for 20-25 minutes JUST until the palmiers have puffed up, and are lightly brown, don’t let them burn
- repeat with the remaining tray
- serve the same day
