Little hearts Biscuit or Palmiers?? - from Dhivya's Kitchen to Mine..!

Palmiers - Flaky and crunchy, sweet as well salty. When I saw this recipe in Dhivya's blog...it instatntly reminded me of the little hearts biscuits I used to relish on in india. Britania Little heart biscuits. These cute heart biscuits resemble them so much.

I was so happy to see this recipe that I immidiately wanted to try it out. I made this that evening itself and the result was outstanding. It tasted a bit different from the little heart biscuits... but it looked so nice and same...:) Thank u Dhivya for sharing this amazing recipe.

What are palmiers? Palmiers are traditionally frech pastries. A lot of people call these Elephant Ears, but in the European baking world they will always be known as Palmiers.Palmier (pal-mee-ay) is the French word for a palm tree and these cookies are said to resemble palm leaf.Light, buttery, cripsy, sweet french cookie. Takes a little effort the first time through but it's rather fast when you get the hang of it and it looks like you spent forever on them.

I always feel they look like hearts more than palm leaves...... checked out few more snaps of internet, they all look more like hearts.... hmmmm duno y they named it palm leaves... hmm..

Anyways, I made a few changes to the recipe....specially in the timings, and to enhance the flavour in my second batch of these biscuits. You can find the Original recipe from dhivya's blog here. Here goes my recipe with few changes.

You need :

Puff pastry sheets - 1 packet

Powdered Sugar - 3/4 cup

Salt - 2 tsp

Cardamom powder - 1 tbsp

Almond powder - 1 tbsp

Method:

Thaw the pastry sheets in room temperature. Dont microwave it.. I did that mistake so I am warning u. When I tried to defrost the sheets in microwave the edges became soggy....and it was difficult to handle it. So avoid thawing in microwave. Its better to keep it out before hand and allow it to thaw in room temperature.

Keep 1/4 of the total sugar aside and mix the rest of the sugar, cardamom powder and nut powder together. This powder should be fine. Keep it aside.

Dust the kitchen surface with the some sugar powder that we kept aside. Now unfold one of the 2 pastry sheet and dust the inside with some sugar powder. Now sprinkle the nut, sugar and cardamom powder over the sheet and gently press using a rolling pin to press the sugar in completely. Reapeat the same procedure from the other side too.

Fold in the 2 horizontal edges of the pastry to the centre of the pastry...from either sides.Dust with sugar and nut powder and press with a rolling pin. So see the steps with pictures see here. Again take in the folded horizontal edges and get them to the centre. Dust with sugar,nut and cardamom powder and press with a rolling pin. Now once again for the last step... fold the pastry sheet from the middle as in both the horizontal edges meet. Be gently...dont press too hard. Once ur roll is ready. Trim the edges keep aside (u can bake these too). Cut the roll in pieces, sprinkle sugar and nut powder over the pieces and place them in a cookie sheet. Keep about 2 inch space between the cookies. These take in lot of space when they bake. Keep it in the refridgerator for 15 minutes or so allwoing it to set a bit.

Now, bake the cookies @ 350 degree F in a preheated oven for around 10 minutes. Keep checking in between as these cookies become brown too soon. You dont wanna burn your cookies. So, one they become golden brown in colour, take them out. You can be assured they r done.

When I baked in my first batch I covered the cookie sheet with an aluminium foil, hence it took the cookie a lot of time to bake. So if ur baking ur cookie in an aluminium foil sheet, Adjust the time accordingly.When i baked in a foil, it took me nearly 20 minutes for the cookies to become golden brown. Guess its all trial and error. The best way is to keep checking the pastry in between to assure that its not burnt.

Your cookies are ready. Serve at room temperature. Tastes amazing and crisp when served hot. Enjoy.

Serve these crispy golden beauties with a cup of coffee... for those evening snacks. I am sure you will love it. :)... ENJOY!