Tomorrow is the baby girl’s 19th birthday and she requested her favorite cookies, elephant ears in English or Palmiers in French. I have written about them before, how wonderful they are and how tricky they are to bake; only because of the cookie being dipped in sugar and the high temperature of the oven, 425 Fahrenheit, the chances of getting charcoal cookies are very good if you don’t keep your eye and nose on high alert.
Anyhow as I make these more often, I still wonder how small bakery shops keep up with the demand because there is no getting away from the time constraints of the pastry dough itself. I made 2.5 pounds of pastry dough and from start to finish with the rolling, folding and resting times, it took all of five hours before getting all of the cookies cut and onto the cookie sheets. The baking took ten minutes per sheet so the baking took a little while. I know that even small bakeries have specific ovens but I still admire them for the way they produce their wonderful pastries. It is hard and if they run out of any of the intricate pastries, it isn’t as if they can just whip something up on a whim. I also admire their product and time management. I used to have a tiny fantasy about having a pastry shop/ cafe but as I have written before, a day in the kitchen baking something just a little tricky is a healthy splash of water on my head to slap me back into reality.
I love these cookies because everyone who eats them makes “the” noise, the surprise that reaches their eyes when they are taken in by the buttery layers and the caramelization on the surface of those same buttery layers. It does my baker’s heart and ego a lot of good when I hear and see those happy faces.
