What appeals most to me in a recipe is the potential – the versatility of substituting one or two ingredients and giving the dish an entirely new flavor. That’s the beauty of this recipe. It has only two essential ingredients: puff pastry and a filling.
It’s fast and easy: Grab frozen puff pastry and a jar of pre-made (or homemade!) pesto, sundried tomato jam, or bacon jam.
Or it can be complicated: Make your own puff pastry.
Sweet or savory, you decide what you want on the inside. Today, I wanted pesto.
Pesto Palmiers
A quick and elegant appetizer.
Ingredients
- 1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
- 1/2-3/4 cup pesto*
- 1 egg
- 1 Tbsp water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Roll out the puff pastry on a piece of parchment into a 12x12 inch square.
- Spread the pesto within 1/2 inch of each side of the pastry (you might use more or less than 1/2 cup). Using your spatula, make three indentions on the top edge of the dough at 3 inches, 6 inches, 9 inches to divide the sheet into quarters.
- Fold the left and right edges of the puff pastry halfway to the center of the dough (to the closest quarter-mark indention). Fold the sides to the middle again until they're almost touching. Fold the two halves together like a book. It looks a lot like this:
- Cut into 1/2 inch slices and place onto parchment-lined baking sheets.
- Whisk egg and water together and brush over the palmiers. Bake for 8 minutes, flip, and bake for an additional 6-8 minutes. Palmiers are best the day of baking. *I used a traditional basil pesto recipe for this batch. Cilantro-pecan pesto, olive tapenade, sun-dried tomato pesto, and marinara also work wonderfully in this recipe.
I've stopped here and frozen the palmiers for later use. Just let the logs thaw a bit and then proceed.
Notes
Yields: ~24 Palmiers
Estimated time: 20 minutes