Orange Chocolate Palmiers

Today is "Bloggers Picnic V (V for vendetta)". It is done potluck style. Anyone who is a fan of blogs, writes a blog, reads a blog, comments or torments on a blog is welcome to attend. Invite details on Metblogs.

My contribution to the days noshing and festivities will include these tasty but stupid easy cookies. I'm not quite sure where I heard that orange and chocolate are a good flavor combination but they do pair well. These cookies are something I just thought up one day and ran with it.

Orange Chocolate Palmiers

• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry - thawed


• 2 T raw or tourbinado sugar, divided


• zest of one medium orange


• 1 oz bitter sweet chocolate

Lay down a sheet of plastic wrap larger than the puff pastry sheet. Sprinkle 1 T of the raw sugar on the plastic wrap approximately the size of the pastry sheet. Unfold pastry on top of the sugar. The unfolded pastry should have the creases visible and running horizontal on the wrap.

Sprinkle the remaining 1 T raw sugar over the pastry sheet. Zest the orange with a microplane over the puff pastry. Using microplane grate the chocolate over the pastry. Lightly tap the sugar, zest and chocolate onto the puff pastry.

With one long edge of the puff pastry carefully fold the edge to the nearest crease. Fold again to the half way point on the pastry. Repeat with the other edge of the dough. Fold the dough again in half. Wrap dough in the plastic wrap and chill 15-minutes. Very important that you chill the dough or it will not cut well nor puff correctly in the oven.

Preheat the oven to 400. Line baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper. Remove the dough from fridge and immediately unwrap. Cut the dough in half. Take the half and cut in the middle (will yield 2, one quarter rolls). Cut the one quarter roll into 3 pieces (about 1/4 think). Lay each cookie on the sheet about 2 inches apart. Repeat until all of dough is cut and lined up on baking sheet.

Bake 12-14 minutes until golden brown. Cool 5 minutes before moving to wire rack.

Note the original crease lines as they are important guides for the folding when it is time to start rolling the palmiers.

Microplanes are the greatest gift to the kitchen, makes it so easy to finely grate things like chocolate and get even distribution at the same time. After the final fold is done you have a log that needs to be rolled in the plastic wrap so it will hold its shape will chilling.
A sharp serrated knife is the best tool for cutting through the chilled dough. It doesn't cut and drag through the dough causing it to lose its shape like a regular knife will.
Silpat sheets...the single greatest invention for anyone who lies to bake. Cookies like this that have a lot of raw sugar would bake and burn onto a regular cookie sheet, here they just bake away and glide right off the sheet. Clean up is easy...damp cloth and it is done.