The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2012

Today is the big reveal for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2012! This year I chose to make cinnamon roll palmiers. Palmiers are one of my favorite treats, they're wonderfully flaky, just a tad chewy and completely delicious. Want to join in the fun next year? Click here to sign up for notifications.

They're super easy if you decide to buy some ready made puff pastry. But I came across a recipe for a homemade version that isn't too intensive and turned out really nicely.

Cinnamon Roll Palmiers
puff pastry (from here with tons of great step by step photos)
2 1/2 sticks unsalted cold butter
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup cold water

Cut 2 sticks of the butter into 1/4 inch cubes.  Scrape them onto a plate and put them in the fridge.

Put the flour and salt in the bowl of your food processor and pulse to mix.  Cut the remaining butter (4 tablespoons) into slivers and add to the work bowl of the processor.  Combine until no visible butter remains.

Add the chilled butter cubes and give three 1-second pulses.  Add half the water and pulse once.  Add the remaining water and pulse twice.  The dough will not form a ball.  Remove the blade carefully.

Scrape the dough from the bowl onto a floured surface and then lightly flour the top of the dough.  Use your hands to squeeze and shape the dough into a cylinder, and then press down on the dough to flatten it into a rectangle.

Flour the surface and the dough, and starting at the narrow end of the rectangle farthest from you, use a rolling pin to press the dough firmly in parallel strokes close to each other.  If there are sticky pieces of butter on the surface of the dough, seal them with a large pinch of flour, making sure to clean off anything stuck to the rolling pin before continuing.  Repeat the pressing motion again from close to farther narrow end of the dough.

Press the dough once along the width; it should  be a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick.  Once again, flour under and on top of the dough and roll the dough away and back toward you in the length and once in the width, without rolling over he ends in the same direction, to make a rectangle about 18 inches long and 8 inches wide.

Fold the two 8 inch ends of the dough in toward the middle of the rectangle.  Leaving a 1 inch space in the middle.  Fold the bottom up to the top to form 4 layers of dough.  Reposition the dough so that the folded edge that resembles the spine of a book is on your left.  Rolling and folding the dough is known as giving the dough a turn.

Repeat the folds and turns two more times. Tightly wrap the pastry and chill it for at least 3 hours before using.


filling:
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 cup granulated sugar

Mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

topping:
1/2 cup vanilla sugar

Pour the vanilla sugar onto a small plate in an even layer.

Assembly:

Preheat oven to 425

Roll the puff pastry out into large rectangle (approx 15x12 or so), pour about 1/3-1/2 of the sugar mixture over the top of the puff pastry in an even layer and go over the sugar with your rolling pin to help it adhere to the dough. Starting with the long edge, roll the pastry into a tight cylinder.

Using a sharp knife, trim the edges of the cylinder and then cut into 1/2 inch pieces. Dip the pieces into the vanilla sugar and place, sugar side up, onto a baking sheet (lined with parchment or a silpat).

Bake for about 12 minutes, rotating halfway through, until puffed and lightly brown.

this recipe can also be found at some of my favorite food blog hops

 

so many lovely layers

 

don't neglect the end pieces- they're the perfect snack for you while baking,
or for your husband who is staring longingly at the cookies that are destined for the mail

OXO sent us this neat spatula for participation, isn't it great?

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