Pistachio Palmiers Are Santa’s New Favorite Cookie

Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, Kristina Cho didn’t spend much time baking with her family, but she vividly remembers the plate of cookies they would set out for Santa each Christmas Eve.

“My family aren’t huge bakers—we come from a Chinese restaurant family and so our Christmas dinner was always elaborate,” says Cho, a recipe developer, cooking instructor and author of the newly released Mooncakes & Milk Bread: Sweet and Savory Recipes Inspired by Chinese Bakeries. “But my mom always made sure to have Santa’s cookies on the table.”

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Often it would be a chocolate chip cookie alongside the requisite glass of milk. But as Cho moved into middle school, she began teaching herself how to bake a range of cookies that she served at family functions. She started making snowball cookies, her grandpa’s almond cookies and eventually pistachio palmiers.

“I love the really kind of bright green color of pistachios,” she says. “It feels a little festive and the shimmer of the sugar kind of gives that twinkly effect that you think of with holiday twinkly lights.”

While these puff pastry cookies may bring to mind a French patisserie, they’re just as ubiquitous in Chinese bakeries, where they’re often referred to as butterfly cookies.

“There’s a lot of crossover between Western or European-style baking and Chinese baking in recipes because there’s just so much influence there,” says Cho, adding that the butterfly cookies in Chinese bakeries range from sweet to savory and from palm-sized to as big as her head.

One of the key differences from the French style is the use of Chinese puff pastry. While the two are fairly comparable, the Chinese pastry is slightly less buttery and a touch crisper.

But “as you work your way through the swirls [of the palmier], the texture changes a little bit and the center of the swirl has a little chew to it, which I really love,” says Cho. “The sugar on the outside caramelizes and it gets golden brown, toasty and crunchy, and the pistachios meld with the butter and your kitchen just smells so insanely good.”

While Cho says it’s worth the “very meditative” effort to make Chinese puff pastry from scratch, there’s nothing wrong with streamlining your holiday baking efforts by using pre-made frozen puff pastry.

“The holidays are busy for everybody, and I write a lot of my recipes [to include a] simpler option that will still result in just as good of a cookie,” says Cho. “The main difference is that making your own puff pastry will give a flakier, more delicate texture than using store bought, but store bought will be totally fine.”

These pistachio palmiers are what Cho calls a “fancy slice-and-bake cookie.” A blend of sugar and roasted pistachios is spread across the top of a sheet of puff pastry, which is rolled tightly into a heart-shaped log before it’s thinly sliced.

One very important tip Cho offers home bakers is “don’t rush.” It’s crucial that the dough stays cold until it goes into the oven. If you find your kitchen heating up as you’re baking batches of holiday cookies, just “pop your components in the fridge for a few minutes in between each step,” she advises.

Keeping the dough chilled will help the rolling and slicing process, as will a freshly sharpened knife. “A really sharp, good quality knife is one of the most important things in the kitchen, and it definitely helps when you go to slice these cookies,” says Cho.

Around the holidays, it’s always nice to have a little extra something in your freezer just in case, and these cookies are a great option for freezing and baking when the craving—or the panicked, last-minute party invite—hits. Just assemble the cookies, slice them and then place them on a sheet pan in the freezer until they’re frozen solid. At this point, you can throw them in a freezer bag for storage.

“Right before your cookie swap or on Christmas morning, you can just pop them in the oven,” says Cho. “They might take an extra two or three minutes to fully bake, so just look in the oven to see if the layers are kind of separating and you have a nice golden-brown color.”

Makes 32

INGREDIENTS

• .5 cup Sugar
• .5 cup Roasted pistachios
• All-purpose flour, for dusting
• Chinese Puff Pastry (see below) or store bought
• 1 Large egg

DIRECTIONS

1. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse to combine the sugar and pistachios until the mixture has a medium-coarse texture, about 30 seconds.
2. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the sheet of puff pastry into a 12-inch-by-16-inch rectangle. In a small bowl, whisk the egg and use a pastry brush to brush it onto the surface of the puff pastry, all the way to the edges. Sprinkle two-thirds of the pistachio sugar evenly over the puff pastry.
3. Starting along the long side of the pastry, tightly roll up just to the center, then roll the opposite long side to meet in the center, forming a 16-inch-long heart-shaped log. Place the log on a large- rimmed baking sheet and freeze until firm, at least 15 minutes (or longer if the kitchen is hot). It shouldn’t be so firm that you can’t slice it.
4. Preheat the oven to 375°F and line two large-rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Place the log on a sheet of parchment paper. Brush the exterior of the pastry log with remaining egg wash and sprinkle the remaining third of the pistachio sugar over all sides of the log. Use the parchment paper to help press the pistachio sugar onto the pastry. With a sharp knife, trim a half inch off either end and cut the log into 32 slices. For even slices, cut the log in half and continue to cut each piece in half until you have 32 slices. Arrange the slices, cut sides up, on the baking sheets, spacing them one-and-a-half inches apart.
6. Bake until cookies are golden brown and crisp, 28 to 30 minutes. Transfer the sheets to a wire rack and allow the palmiers to cool on the sheet for 5 minutes. Transfer the palmiers to the rack to cool completely.
7. Storage notes: Cookies can be stored in an airtight container (a resealable bag works great) at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Makes about 1.5 pounds of pastry

INGREDIENTS

For the Butter Block:

• 227g (1 cup; 2 sticks) Unsalted butter, chilled
• 150g (1.25 cups) All-purpose flour

For the Flour Dough:

• 210g (1.66 cups) All-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
• 1 Large egg
• .5 tsp Coarse salt
• 75g (.33 cup) Ice water

DIRECTIONS

1. Make the butter block: Cut the butter into 1-inch cubes and place in the bowl of a food processor. Add the flour and pulse until smooth (it will be crumbly at first). Transfer the butter mixture to a sheet of plastic wrap. Fold the plastic over the butter mixture and then press to form a roughly 5-inch square. Refrigerate until firm but still somewhat pliable, 30 to 35 minutes.
2. Make the flour dough: Place the flour, egg, salt, and ice water in the clean bowl of the food processor. Pulse just until a smooth ball of dough forms. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and slightly flatten into a disk. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, 30 to 35 minutes.
3. Unwrap both the dough and butter block. Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour and roll out the flour dough with a large rolling pin into a 7-inch-by-10-inch rectangle. Place the butter block in the center of the dough and fold the edges of the dough over the butter block, so that it is tightly wrapped. Flip over the pastry dough so it is seam-side down. Continue to lightly dust the work surface if the dough starts to stick. With the rolling pin, firmly press down on the dough to thin it out (this should prevent it from tearing). Roll out the dough into a 6-inch-by-12-inch rectangle. Fold the dough into thirds, like a letter, and press it down with the rolling pin again to flatten. Roll the dough into a 6-inch-by-12-inch rectangle and repeat the process of folding the dough into thirds like a letter one more time. Flatten and roll the dough into an 8-inch-by-12-inch rectangle and wrap tightly with plastic wrap.
4. Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes before working it again. At this point, the puff pastry can be either frozen or refrigerated for future use.

Reprinted from Mooncakes & Milk Bread by Kristina Cho. Copyright 2021 by Kristina Cho. Photographs copyright Kristina Cho. Used by permission of Harper Horizon, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC.