Rainbow Puff Pastry Cookies (French Palmiers)

French palmiers, pig’s ear, palm heart, elephant ear or simply puff pastry cookies. This tasty cookie has many names.

Palmiers are heart-shaped crispy puff pastry cookies. Originally this cookie comes from France and the literal translation of palmiers is palm trees.

You can easily make French palmiers yourself and you only need two ingredients: puff pastry and sugar. We make them extra festive because we make rainbow cookies!

For this recipe you also need food coloring. But you can also leave out the coloring and make simple palmiers.

You can also decorate palmiers with chocolate, icing, sprinkle with powdered sugar, or fill with cinnamon. These are all sweet options, but savory palmiers are tasty too! With pesto, with cheese or with passata, for example.

With our rainbow recipes we try to make the world a little more colorful and accepting from the kitchen! Will you help? Share your creations via #rainbowrecipes.

Puff Pastry Cookies

Get a roll of fresh puff pastry, sugar, food coloring, and let’s get baking! For about 22 cookies you need 1 roll fresh puff pastry (9 ½ oz / 270 gram), 6 tablespoon colored sugar (1 tbsp of each rainbow color), and 1 tablespoon white sugar.

If you buy vegan puff pastry, these cookies are completely vegan.

You can also use crescent dough instead of fresh puff pastry.

Prepare 6 different jars or ziploc bags, 1 per color. We are going to color the sugar in the colors of the rainbow. So red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple!

You can of course mix red, yellow and blue and make orange, green and purple.

Want to make more rainbow recipes? Make these rainbow cupcakes, rainbow chocolate chip cookies, and this rainbow cake!

Add 1 tablespoon of sugar to each jar or ziploc bag and then a few drops of liquid food coloring or a pinch of gel food coloring. If you use a jar, put a lid on it and shake it. If you use a ziploc bag, knead well until the sugar is evenly colored.

Roll out the puff pastry. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of white sugar over the dough and roll the sugar into the puff pastry with a rolling pin. Then turn the puff pastry over. Time to use the colored sugar!

Rainbow Cookies

Sprinkle the colored sugar over the long length. This makes for 6 lanes over the short length. Make sure the sugar is in this order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

Then roll over the sugar gently with a rolling pin. This way, the sugar is pressed into the dough and it sticks better.

Roll the long sides of the puff pastry in by hand, to the center. Repeat with the other side so that the rollers meet in the center (between yellow and green lane) and form a double spiral.

Wrap the puff pastry in parchment paper or plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. The dough can also be placed in the freezer for 10 minutes, if you are in a hurry!

The dough can then be cut into pieces of about ⅗ inch (1.5 cm). Place the pieces on parchment paper (at a good distance) and bake!

Brush the baking paper with oil first (this is not necessary if you use a silicone baking mat).

Bake the cookies at 430 °F (220 °C) for 15 minutes. When the cookies are ready, let them cool for 1-2 minutes. Then carefully loosen them with a spatula. Otherwise, they will stick due to the melted sugar.

French Palmiers

Palmiers are French cookies invented in the early 20th century. You can of course make puff pastry yourself to make these French cookies, but the easiest thing is to buy a roll of fresh puff pastry.

You can also vary by using a roll of crescent dough.

Palmiers are often eaten in France for breakfast or dessert. The name palmier (palm tree) owes its name to the resemblance to a palm leaf. But the cookie also looks like a butterfly, elephant ear, pig ear, and what else?

Also fun and delicious to make: apple beignets, puff pastry cinnamon rolls, coconut macaroons with rainbow glaze.

Rainbow Recipes

Check out more rainbow recipes on our website! We create 30 recipes, a recipe for every day of Pride Month.

Together, we can make the world more colorful and accepting, from the kitchen. Help and share your creations through #rainbowrecipes!

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