How-To: Savory Palmiers

Palmiers, or elephant ears (or glutus maximi--what we thought they looked most like), are pastries typically filled with powdered sugar, but this Barefoot Contessa recipe is Mediterranean savory. Basically, it's pesto, feta, sundried tomatoes, and pine nuts in puffed pastry.

There were lots of folding steps that the recipe made a little unclear, so my friend Laura (who makes a lovely hand model!) and I documented our experimentation with recipe. The result: crispy, delicious, fancy-looking hors d'oeuvres.

(Transparency statement: This was the pretty picture from our second batch; the first batch I baked at 350 degrees instead of 400, which made them not-so-crispy. Whoops.)

First, roll out a sheet of puff pastry into anapproximately 9x11-inch rectangle. If you don't have a rolling pin (as was the case at our cabin in the woods), use a wine bottle. We didn't even take the label off, and it worked fine. Just beware of the skinnier neck making your rolling slightly uneven.

Then, spread onto the pastry dough tastiness--pesto then feta, toasted pine nuts, and chopped sundried tomatoes-- 1/8 cup of each.

Now the folding fun begins.

Fold 1: Starting with the short ends, fold each side toward the center until the folded edges almost touch.

Fold 2: Again, fold each side toward the center until the edges almost touch.

And fold some more.

Fold 3: Fold one side over the other and press lightly.

Then, what you don't see in the picture is that you must wrap the the roll in parchment paper and chill it for 45 minutes. Preparing a night in advance when you are not starving would be a good idea. THEN, you slice them like cinnamon rolls into 1/4-inch -thick slices (translation: very thin).

Finally, stick them in the oven to get crisp-- 14 minutes at 400 degrees. We lined our pan with foil to make for easy cleanup.

The End. See top of post for a reminder of the beauty of the final product.