Elephant ears, palmiers, palmera

[Steb]

I've seen these pretty big, maybe about about 7 inches x 5 inches. But all youtube videos and recipes I've seen turn out miniature ones. I guess those frozen sheets of pastry just aren't big enough.

So I bought a block of puff pastry and rolled it out to over 2 feet long and maybe twice as thick as the frozen sheets. Rolled it up, cooked it and I'm getting 4 x 3 inch palmiers. The pastry seems to rising ok, but maybe there's more potential I don't know about.

Does anyone know how big a sheet of pastry they start with to make these huge elephant ears?

[RichardJones]

Steb,

I am afraid I do not have my dimensions to hand (I'm away from home) but the basic principle is, the bigger you want them, the bigger the sheet of pastry you need to beging with. For the largest ones, that is a very long sheet (probably heading for the best part of a metre).

A few things which might also help are... don't leave the pastry too thick. Puff pastry puffs more if you roll it more thinly (up to a certain point - if it's super thin you risk breaking the layers, but head for c.3mm). Better to have the pastry thinner then create more folds when shaping the palmiers. Also, don't fold the pastry too tightly when you shape the palmiers. This will allow room for them to expand to their maximum potential without restriction. Similarly, position them on the baking tray in a Y-shape (i.e. spreading out the two ears a little). They'll form their usual shape naturally as the pastry expands during cooking.

Good luck!

Richard