Palmiers Cookies (Elephant Ears)

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Palmiers cookies, also known as “elephant ear cookies,” are quick and easy to make. All you need are 2 basic ingredients: puff pastry sheets and sugar. You can assemble the puff pastry dough at home, or buy it at the market. Enjoy these cookies for snacks and dessert.

📌 Pin Palmiers Cookies

Elephant ear cookies are elegant desserts perfect any time of year, including Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and for graduation parties. For casual luncheons and formal dinner parties (like Thanksgiving) they make wonderful hostess gifts. During the holiday season, add them to your cookie boxes.

Serve elephant ear cookies with coffee, tea, or milk. For a tea party, they’re a fancy addition to a tiered serving tray. Enjoy them with your beverage of choice in the morning, as a mid-day snack, or a light after-dinner dessert.

For these sweet homemade treasures, we use a light flaky pastry dough to make crisp palmier cookies with a delicate crunch. I’ll show you how to make the dough at home, but feel free to use a box of ready-to-bake puff pastry sheets from the grocery store.

🛒 Ingredients

For the Pastry Dough

👩🏻‍🍳 Halfway homemade: Quickly make palmiers cookies with store-bought puff pastry sheets. Make sure the pastry is made entirely with butter, not with shortening or other oils. Look for a box of Dufour classic puff pastry.

Or make puff pastry dough from scratch with the ingredients below.

• All-Purpose Flour: It’s the base of our puff pastry dough. All-purpose flour works best here. Make sure to measure it using the spoon-and-level method, as adding too much flour can result in dry pastry dough.
• Granulated Sugar: Adds just a hint of sweetness to the dough. But we’re also using granulated sugar to roll the palmiers so they get that delicious crisp sugar coating.
• Kosher Salt: Helps season the dough and balance out the sweetness of the cookies.
• Salted Butter: It’s the key to puff pastry, and it must be very cold. Cold butter will result in a light flaky dough.
• Ice-Cold Water: This chilled liquid helps bring the dough together. We’re using ice water to help keep the butter cold. Just make sure not to get any bits of ice in your dough.

For the Palmiers Cookies

• Granulated Sugar: Provides sweetness, texture and crunch. Be very generous with this ingredient when assembling elephant ear cookies.
• Turbinado Sugar or Coarse Sparkling Sugar: These coarse sugars add more flavor and texture to the cookies. It gives them a nice crunch. Either type of sugar works well. If you have both types, feel free to combine them together.

📖 Recipe Steps

👩🏻‍🍳 Make the Pastry Dough

👉🏻 Halfway Homemade: If using a box of store-bought puff pastry, thaw it according to package directions. For flaky cookies, the dough must be pliable but still cool. You can skip the 8 steps below for making the dough. Just scroll down to the instructions for forming and baking the palmiers.

1. Add flour, sugar, salt and half the butter to the bowl of the food processor. (Or make this recipe by hand without kitchen tools.*)
2. Pulse just until the butter is incorporated – do not overmix.
3. Add remaining butter and ice-cold water to the bowl. Pulse just until a rough dough forms that can be pressed together into a ball. Do not over-process the dough. This is very important. Small chunks of butter should be visible throughout the mixture.
4. Briefly place your hands under cold running water to shed any heat before working with the dough. Dry them well with a kitchen towel. Transfer dough to a lightly-floured work surface. Quickly knead it a few times with the heels of your hands. Pat the dough into a 1/2-inch thick square. Wrap it in plastic and chill it in the fridge for 1 hour.

👩🏻‍🍳 *RECIPE TIP: You don’t need a food processor to make the dough for palmiers cookies. You can make it with your hands in a mixing bowl. For complete instructions, see this detailed post for 👉🏻 puff pastry dough.

1. Lightly flour a work surface. Roll the chilled square of dough into an 8″x10″ rectangle. Lightly dust both sides of dough with flour.
2. Now we’ll begin the rolling and folding process. Starting from the shorter end, fold the rectangle into thirds, just like folding a business letter before putting it into an envelope.
3. Rotate the dough a quarter turn. Repeat the process 3 more times: rolling, folding rotating.
4. Slip the folded dough into a zip-top bag. Chill it in the fridge for 2 hours (or up to 2 days) before making the elephant ear cookies.

🧑🏼‍🍳 Form & Bake the Palmiers Cookies

RECIPE PREP: Preheat oven to 400ºF. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Put it aside. Generously sprinkle granulated sugar (about 2 tablespoons) over your work surface.

1. Place the puff pastry on top of the sugar. Sprinkle more sugar generously over the top of the pastry. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces. Roll out 1 piece to a 1/8″ thick rectangle (about 10″x”15″). Transfer it to the prepared baking tray.
2. Fold the puff pastry in half lengthwise and gently crease it – we’re just marking the center of the pastry so we know where the middle is. Open the dough back up (unroll it).
3. Sprinkle 1/4 cup granulated sugar evenly over the dough. Roll both long sides of the dough inward, stopping at the crease in the middle. Gently squeeze the dough together to create a heart-shaped log (which also look like elephant ears).
4. Slip the tray into freezer for 15 minutes, or until the dough is cold and firm. Don’t skip this step – it’ll help the Palmiers cookies keep their shape. Once the dough has chilled, slice the log into 1/3″ pieces with a very sharp knife.

1. Dip the cut side of each piece into the remaining granulated sugar.
2. Place the elephant ear cookies cut side up on the prepared baking tray. Make sure to leave at least 2 1/2 inches of space between each cookie. They’ll puff up and spread quite a bit during baking.
3. Sprinkle the palmiers cookies with turbinado sugar (or coarse white sparkling sugar) and bake for 13 minutes or until the pastries are golden blonde. If the sugar on the bottom of the cookies starts to burn before baking is completed, immediately lower the temperature to 375ºF, and move the baking tray to a higher rack.
4. Allow the palmier cookies to cool completely on the tray. As they shed heat they’ll become crisper. Serve and enjoy.

Expert Tip – Oven Temperature: The temperature displayed on the oven control panel is not necessarily the actual temperature inside your oven. For exact bake times and best results for your recipes, I highly recommend an oven thermometer to measure the exact internal temp.

🥣 Recipe FAQ

These are the most commonly-asked questions when making Palmiers cookies, and the most helpful answers for recipe success.

🍪 More Yummy Cookies

If you love elephant ear cookies, you’ll enjoy these delicious homemade cookies too. Add them to your recipe collection.

• Vanilla Creme Sandwich Cookies
• Biscotti Cookies
• Lemon Curd Cookies
• Malted Milk Cookies
• Iced Oatmeal Cookies
• Chocolate M&M Cookies
• White Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Patriotic Meringue Cookies

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Flavor testers rated these the BEST palmiers cookies. They loved the buttery flavor and light crisp texture enhanced by the coarse sugar crystals.

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Palmiers Cookies 👉🏻 Join the Conversation

What do you think of this easy bakery-style recipe? Will you make palmier cookies with store-bought puff pastry or homemade dough? Share your thoughts in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you.