Palmiers with orange zest (and a little dark chocolate)

It must be the thought of upcoming Valentine's Day that had me thinking about and making a batch of palmiers recently.  I haven't made them in years but there was already puff pastry in the freezer so I went with it.  I always called these "butterfly cookies" when I was younger but whether you more likely know them as palmiers or elephant ears, I love these cookies for their signature heart-shape.  I'm a sucker for all the frilly pink and red heart-shaped things we're seeing right now.

Supposing, like me, you don't feel the compulsion to make puff pastry from scratch and simply head to the freezer section of the supermarket, palmiers are truly easy to make.  At its barest, it only takes two ingredients: puff pastry and sugar.  That got me thinking about adding a little twist, layering on a different flavor for a change...

My mind naturally went to chocolate and I considered using a combination of cocoa powder with sugar to roll the puff pastry in but I wasn't sure how the cookies would look after baking.  I switched gears and got to thinking about fresh flavors and something to maybe offset or brighten up all the sweetness and richness of these cookies.  I went with orange zest (it seems to be the answer to lots of things).  I simply zested an orange right into the sugar and rubbed the two together to release the flavors and essential oils from the zest before using the mixture to roll the puff pastry and shape them into these palmiers.

I ended up with palmiers infused with a gentle but clear presence of orange flavor.  Of course, I couldn't completely shake my need for chocolate.  You know orange goes so well with chocolate.  So I did the natural thing and drizzled a few of my orange palmiers with bittersweet chocolate.  The light drizzle of chocolate seems to bring out the orange flavor even more.

Somehow, palmiers seem to simultaneously call for a cup of hot tea or a cold bowl of ice cream to go along with it.  I'm game with whichever option you choose to go with.

Easy chocolate-almond croissants

I'm sure you've seen many recipes for making shortcut croissant or pain au chocolat using store-bought puff pastry.  So while this is hardly earth-shattering, I'm actually pretty psyched about it because this almond version has a baton of almond paste tucked into it that makes it a world better (in my opinion, anyway) than those without.  Admittedly, I'm biased because almond paste is one of my favorite baking ingredients.  Hopefully, you enjoy it too...

This was really just an exercise on my part to use up ingredients.  I have puff pastry in the freezer after my last experiment and thought I'd use some of it to make a simple breakfast.  Not surprisingly, my son enjoys pain au chocolat so I thought I'd make a few.  To make things a little more interesting, I went with this chocolate-almond version.  They're filled with dark chocolate and a baton of almond paste (just almond paste rolled into a baton or log shape).  It's convenient that I often have leftover almond paste in the refrigerator so this all came together very easily.

Dark chocolate and almond paste filling

The almond paste warms but stays intact after baking and in a bite, the fragrant, sweet almond flavor plays really well with the dark chocolate.  It also adds a touch of chewiness against the crisp, flaky texture of the croissant.  There's certainly nothing wrong with a regular pain au chocolat - in fact, I made an extra, plain one for my son - but the almond paste inside and the sliced almonds on top add another layer of flavor that we really, really liked.

A plain pain au chocolat on the left

Since I have no faith in my ability to produce that croissant shape, I went with the simple fold/roll-up method that's the signature shape of pains au chocolat anyway.  I've attempted the croissant shape before, with embarrassingly unattractive results.  I never can seem to get the hang of twisting the dough correctly so that it comes out looking like a croissant rather than a twisted crab.  I'll be sticking with this simple method from now on.

I literally made just 3 of these babies for our breakfast.  If you're using a sheet of puff pastry, you can make 6, cutting the dough downward along the folds into three pieces first, then slicing again crosswise to make a total of 6 rectangles.  I assembled them the night before and covered them snugly with plastic wrap before storing in the refrigerator.  In the morning, I topped them off with a little egg wash and sliced almonds before baking.

I believe that traditional, or "true", almond or chocolate-almond croissants are made with day-old croissants that are split in half and filled with almond cream and topped with almond slices before baking again.  To me, using almond paste and store-bought puff pastry is a good shortcut.  No doubt, these chocolate-almond croissants would be markedly better made with homemade puff pastry.  If you've done that yourself, I applaud you.  But since making puff pastry is not on my to-do list, this is the kind of recipe for me.

Savory hand pies and chocolate croissants

There are so many things you can do with puff pastry, whether it be savory or sweet.  You can basically lay things on top or stuff it inside, then pop it in the oven and watch it puff up into buttery and flaky goodness.  I've had this extra sheet of puff pastry in the freezer for a while - puff pastry is delicious but not something I use often.  But today, I decided to make some savory hand pies with my extra sheet of puff pastry.  This one is stuffed with mashed sweet potatoes and chicken.  It made a nice change for a Fall dinner.

One sheet of puff pastry can make 4 of these hand pies.  I made three and with the last square of puff pastry, I made 2 little chocolate croissants.  Well, these look a bit more like chocolate "crabs" than croissants but homemade things have a way of coming out funny (in my kitchen anyway).  All the same, it was a tasty little treat.