No. 3320

Palms

Palmiers

Have some puff paste made to four turns (No. 146); give it four more, dredging each one with sugar; at the very last one roll out the paste to obtain a six-inch wide band and fold this into four on its length, making it join on to the first two that were folded, the two lateral ends being in the center, and then another fold doubling up the band. Cut this into transversal slices a quarter of an inch thick and range them on a baking sheet an inch and a half apart, laying them down flat; sift powdered sugar over and bake in a medium oven; as soon as done detach from the sheet.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's palmiers are puff paste laminated with sugar rather than flour, which makes the sugar the working ingredient and not a garnish. Two things decide the result: how much sugar goes into the turns, and how promptly the baked cakes come off the sheet.

The hinge: lift them the moment they leave the ovenThe recipe says to detach them from the sheet as soon as they are done, because the sugar that runs out onto the pan hardens as it cools and can glue the cakes down. Slide a thin offset spatula under each one while the sheet is still hot, then cool them on a rack.
Sugar in place of dredging flourEach of the four additional turns is dredged with sugar rather than flour, as the recipe directs. The book does not say how much sugar that comes to, or what grade.
"Powdered sugar" in 1894In this period the term generally means finely ground granulated sugar, closer to what is now sold as caster or superfine, rather than modern confectioners' sugar, which contains cornstarch.
Oven temperatureThe recipe says only "a medium oven" and gives no figure; modern equivalents for that term are usually put somewhere around 375-400F. Some cooks turn palmiers over partway through so both faces color, though this recipe does not call for it.
Eight turns is a great manyFour turns of the base paste (No. 146) plus four more gives more lamination than much modern puff pastry, which often stops at around six. Rest the dough in the refrigerator between the later turns or the butter will smear.
Reading the foldRoll a band six inches wide, fold each long edge in to the center, fold each of those in to the center again, then close the whole thing like a book. That is the four-plus-one fold described here, and it produces the double spiral.
Spacing and the panAn inch and a half apart is the minimum; two inches is safer, as they roughly double in width. Use a heavy sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat, since bare metal takes the brunt of the running caramel.

A Little History

Palmier is French for palm tree, the name taken from the shape of the baked spiral, though the same cake has circulated under other names — palm leaves, elephant ears, pig's ears — depending on what the spiral is thought to resemble. It belongs to the family of pastries built entirely from technique: no filling, no leavening beyond the lamination, nothing but puff paste and sugar taken hot enough to caramelize. Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a full record of that French-trained repertoire, and the small cakes for entremets are the sort of thing sent out in quantity alongside ices and creams at the close of a long service. The recipe assumes the reader already has puff paste at four turns from No. 146, which tells you something about the intended audience — a professional kitchen where a batch of feuilletage was simply on hand.