Home cooked palmiers take a few minutes to prepare, are quick to cook and can be flavoured however you want, be it sweet or savoury, meat or meatfree, cheese or chocolate. Great for kids to play around with and awesome to impress your guests when you whip your home made pastries out of the oven!

Palmiers – The Easiest Baking Recipe in the World

Gavin Wren Baking, Recipes

Today I’m writing about palmiers, one of the easiest baking recipes in the world and also one of the most versatile, allowing you to play around with sweet and savoury, adding your own flavours and additions as you desire. Great fun for kids to make or impress your guests with home baked pastries that take a few minutes to prepare and will re-assure your position as a domestic god/goddess.

Home cooked palmiers take a few minutes to prepare, are quick to cook and can be flavoured however you want, be it sweet or savoury, meat or meatfree, cheese or chocolate. Great for kids to play around with and awesome to impress your guests when you whip your home made pastries out of the oven!

Home cooked palmiers take a few minutes to prepare, are quick to cook and can be flavoured however you want, be it sweet or savoury, meat or meatfree, cheese or chocolate. Great for kids to play around with and awesome to impress your guests when you whip your home made pastries out of the oven!

Clickbait Woes.

I received an e-mail this morning from a well known food website whose headline was ‘Ham & cheese toasties will make your Pinterest dreams come true’. It’s a top-hole clickbait title, delving into the murky depths of deceptive titles, really scraping the barrel.

These stupendously elaborate and over-promising titles often lead to articles which manage to massively under-deliver their earlier promises. It’s not uncommon to see titles like ‘This recipe will change your life’, ‘You’ll be the most popular person in town’. A recipe has never quite changed my life, perhaps enriched it, augmented it, deepened it enjoyment and even fulfilled some of it. But I’ve never eaten a cheese toastie then felt the entire course of my life until that point has succesfully been diverted as a result of a recipe.

Nor have I ever eaten a toastie and immediately felt that all my hopes, wishes and dreams that for worldwide dominance on Pinterest, which existed previously, have immediately come into fruition, just by consuming cheese on bloody toast.

Home cooked palmiers take a few minutes to prepare, are quick to cook and can be flavoured however you want, be it sweet or savoury, meat or meatfree, cheese or chocolate. Great for kids to play around with and awesome to impress your guests when you whip your home made pastries out of the oven!

Home cooked palmiers take a few minutes to prepare, are quick to cook and can be flavoured however you want, be it sweet or savoury, meat or meatfree, cheese or chocolate. Great for kids to play around with and awesome to impress your guests when you whip your home made pastries out of the oven!

You’re Not Stupid.

It’s degrading, reading this stuff, it’s dumbing down of the worst kind and above all, it’s lying, it’s genuinely deceitful and dishonest. During the US presidential election season there was a huge surge in fake news which has been claimed to have helped ease Trump into his new job role. Many people in the world believe what they read without being cynical or fact checking it. That’s why clickbait works, because people read these titles and without questioning it think “oooohhh, my life could do with changing” and so they follow the link, before realising it’s just a fcuking recipe for cheese on toast.

The moment you create one of these titles, you are immediately saying ‘my content is aimed at stupid people’. Now I cannot think of a reason why I would ever want to restrict the target audience of my blog by using a stupefied, dumbed-down clickbait title aimed at only at the gullible of the world? I value my integrity, I hold too much store in my words and pictures to ever claim that a recipe of mine would change your life. If you ever feel that your life is in such a bad place that you are desperate for anything that will change it from it’s current course then I suggest you go and speak to a psychotherapist, rather than eating more cheese in the hope life will change afterwards. Because it won’t.

Home cooked palmiers take a few minutes to prepare, are quick to cook and can be flavoured however you want, be it sweet or savoury, meat or meatfree, cheese or chocolate. Great for kids to play around with and awesome to impress your guests when you whip your home made pastries out of the oven!

Home cooked palmiers take a few minutes to prepare, are quick to cook and can be flavoured however you want, be it sweet or savoury, meat or meatfree, cheese or chocolate. Great for kids to play around with and awesome to impress your guests when you whip your home made pastries out of the oven!

I’m Not Stupid Either.

Perhaps you’re wondering why I’m having this rant in a blog post that proclaims to be the easiest in the world? Perhaps you think I’ve overstepped the mark into hypocrisy?

I don’t think so. I think the title is true and I’m very open to discussing this fact, I’d love to hear of a more simplistic recipe than palmiers. It’s a baking recipe that can be completed with just 2 ingredients, takes 15 minutes to cook and can be made with no bowls or utensils, just a baking tray. Fresh, home baked biscuits? Cakes? Pastries? I’m not sure what their official title is, but either way, once they are freshly baked and on a plate ready for guests, people will be amazed at your domestic prowess.

They are also fantastic for messing around with. Here’s a recipe which can be pulled and twisted into whatever flavour combinations you want, it’s up to you entirely, just roll with whatever your heart desires. I’ve produced a sweet and a savoury version for you, as an example, but don’t feel restricted by this, go wild, play around with cheese, chocolate, spreads and pestos, basking in the fact that should it all goes wrong, you’ve only wasted a few minutes of your life in doing so.

Home cooked palmiers take a few minutes to prepare, are quick to cook and can be flavoured however you want, be it sweet or savoury, meat or meatfree, cheese or chocolate. Great for kids to play around with and awesome to impress your guests when you whip your home made pastries out of the oven!

Comté and Pesto Rosso Palmiers

By

Serves 8

Uses a baking sheet and greaseproof paper

PDF recipe card to download or print

Ingredients

375g ready-rolled puff pastry
150g Comté cheese, grated
4 tablespoons pesto rosso (red pesto)

Sweet Cinnamon Palmiers

By

Serves 8

Uses a baking sheet and greaseproof paper

Ingredients

375g ready-rolled puff pastry
6 tablespoons Demerara sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

The method is the same for each type.

Pre-heat your oven to gas mark 7, 425ºF, 218ºC, 198ºC fan. For more info about oven temperatures, read my free guide, here.

Roll the pastry out on the worktop, leaving it on the greaseproof paper it comes rolled up with.

If the pastry is less than 5mm thick, you can move to the next step. If it’s thicker, you will need to roll it out until it’s thinner.

Lay the pastry in front of you, so it sits ‘landscape’ (so the long edge is nearest to you)

Spread the toppings out evenly across the whole surface of the pastry, going right to the edges. If you have a rolling pin, gently roll the ingredients down into the pastry, if you don’t, then use a flat bottomed pan to press them down into the pastry.

Now, slice the pastry down the middle into, so you have two pieces that are roughly square.

Take one piece and starting from the edge, peel it away from the baking paper and roll it up as tight as you can until you reach the middle. Then turn it around and roll the other side up as tight as you can, so they meet in the middle. It’s important to make them as tight and compact as possible.

When you reach the middle, you should have a tight tube of rolled up pastry. Roll this up in the baking paper, then put it in the freezer for 15 minutes or the bottom of the fridge for an hour. Repeat with the other piece.

Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

Remove the rolls from the freezer and slice into 1cm thick pieces, then lay them down on the baking sheet, leaving a bit of space around each one to grow as they bake. Place in the oven for 13-15 minutes. They should be fully puffed up and gently browned on top when ready.

Enjoy!

Home cooked palmiers take a few minutes to prepare, are quick to cook and can be flavoured however you want, be it sweet or savoury, meat or meatfree, cheese or chocolate. Great for kids to play around with and awesome to impress your guests when you whip your home made pastries out of the oven!

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