You could make some from commercial puff pastry, but I wanted the challenge of making a Pate Feuilletee from scratch, which I haven’t done for years.

While surfing through the online Desserts Magazine , I came across a blogger , who I should have been following, but I am always slow on the uptake. Aran, from Cannelle Et Vanille. She adapted Pierre Hermes Chocolate Pate Feuuilletee and her recipes for a Caramelized Chocolate Mille-Feuille with Chocolate Mousse and Fresh Raspberries Napoleon and Chocolate Palmiers.

Aran warns this recipe can take upwards of 2 days.For me It took 3. I didn’t do the first two steps on the same night, and had to fudge a little. I should have mixed my butter/cocoa mix the same night as I made the dough, and let both rest overnight, but I read the directions wrong. So the next evening after work I speed the process of chilling the butter in the freezer for a few hours so I could incorporate it into the folds and turns of dough.This dough required 5 turns, and you start to see the cocoa and butter turn the white dough into a marbled chocolate slab. I used half a block of dough for 20 Palmiers, and stored the rest in the freezer.

The Palmiers cooled up buttery and crisp. The perfect shapes didn’t hold perfectly and my sugar really caramelized with the butter, thereby not looking all freshly rolled in sugar as Arans were. But nevertheless they tasted superb. Rich, crispy, flaky, full of butter and chocolate, but not to sweet.So the labor, and sore arms and hands from all that rolling and turning are worth it for this special treat. I would love to have a block of this puff pastry on hand in the freezer all time.If life were so perfect…sigh.

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