How to make and shape palmier biscuits

Points to remember

• Take a sheet of ready-rolled all butter puff pastry and unroll, leaving it on the paper.
• Sprinkle or spread your pastry with your flavouring - you can use sweet or savoury. Make sure you filling reaches all the corners of the pastry.
• If the filling is dry, roll it gently onto the pastry sheet with a rolling pin to help it stick.
• Starting from one of the long edges, roll the pastry up tightly to the centre then repeat from the other side.
• Roll up the pastry in its original paper to help with definition.
• Chill before baking to ensure the palmiers hold their shape. If you’re short of time, pop them in the freezer for 20 minutes.
• Flour your knife and cut the pastry roll into slices just thinner than 1cm.
• Arrange on a parchment-lined tray leaving a slight gap in between for the pastries to expand.
• Cook on a high shelf in a hot oven - 200C/180C fan/gas 6 for 12-15 mins - or until the pastry is crisp and golden.
• Use a palette knife to ease the palmiers off the baking parchment.
• For savoury, you could try pesto, tapenade or Parmesan. For sweet, sugar and ground cinnamon or Nutella are delicious.

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