Got an empty cookie jar? Fill it with palets bretons, delicious French cookies.
In France there are many popular recipes from Bretagne. Palet breton is one of them. Palets Bretons are delicious, crumbly thick butter cookies which are found everywhere in France.
Brittany recipes use salted butter. I have one more recipes from this region: salted caramel.
* Palet means ‘disk’.
Gather your ingredients. This cookie recipe requires only 6 ingredients: butter, flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, and vanilla.
First, sift dry ingredients: flour and baking powder only.
Then cream salted butter. Salted butter is used in Brittany cooking. If you don’t have one, add 1/4 teaspoon of salt into 1/2 cup of unsalted butter.
Stir in the sugar.
And stir in the egg yolks and vanilla extract.
Pour in the dry mixture all at once and fold until combined.
Now make a cylinder with batter and cover with plastic wrap. The cookie dough should be chilled in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours to stabilize the butter and relax the gluten in it.
Now slice the dough.
And arrange the disks into the cupcake molds.
Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, or until crumbly. The cookie might feel dry but but palets bretons are like that: they should be thoroughly cooked.
A silicon cupcake pan comes in handy when removing the cookies out of the pan.
It is very crumbly thick cookie which can be pretty versatile when you want to be creative.
Add ice cream, chocolate, or other spread on top, then decorate with your choice of fresh or caramelized fruits. They will turn into an instant fancy restaurant dessert.
Palets Bretons Recipe – French Butter Cookies from Brittany
Yield: 20 palet cookies
Difficulty: Easy
Prep time: 20 minutes
Resting time: 2 hours
Baking time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
-
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (190g)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup salted butter, softened (115g) *
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (100g)
- 2 egg yolks (36g)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Egg whites for brushing
- Mini chocolate chips, chopped nuts, or dried fruits of your choice, optional
* If unsalted butter used, mixed in 1/4 teaspoon of salt.
Tools
-
- Silicon cupcake pan, recommended
Directions
1. In a mixing bowl sift in 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. And whisk to combine. Set aside.
2. Cream 1/2 cup of softened salted butter with a whisk. Add in 1/2 cup of granulated sugar and whisk until light and fluffy. Then stir in 2 egg yolks. Keep remaining egg whites. Finally stir in 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract.
3. Pour the dry mixture into the wet all at once. And fold until combined. If you want, now is the time to fold in your choice of chocolate, nuts, or dried fruits.
4. Make a cylinder (1 1/2 inch, 4 cm, in diameter) with the batter and cover it with a plastic wrap. Rest in the refrigerator for 2 hours. This is to stabilize the butter and relax the gluten in the cookie dough.
5. Preheat the oven to 340° F. (170° C.)
6. Cut the cookie roll into 1/2 inch think slices. Cookies easily spread, so distribute the slices into muffin molds. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
Notes
To make salted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon of salt into 1/2 cup of unsalted butter.
Helen Zhang says
Thanks for posting all these French recipes! My school celebrates National French Week in November and every year, my friend and I make a French meal and present it to the class (via poster though :P). Last year we made crepes along with madeleines with raspberry whipped cream. This year, we’re thinking of challenging the macaroon. We’re planning on doing a French breakfast or French desserts. What kinds of food are typically found in a French breakfast and what are the most popular French desserts? Thanks!
PS. Sorry for the long post!
EugenieKitchen says
Hi Helen, Just a puff pastry such as croissant and pain au chocolat with coffee and juice are for basic breakfast. And as for French desserts, there is huge difference between restaurant dessert and tea room dessert. For restaurants, profiterol, creme caramel, tiramisu (IT), pana cotta (IT), etc are popular and at tea rooms, macaron, millefeuilles, St-Honore, tarte tatin, mini tarts, eclairs, etc are high in demand. Good luck with your macaron challenge! Hopefully this helps. :)
joey joey says
Good morning Eugenie. Tried this simple French recipe. I just noticed i used unsalted butter for this recipe, okay?
The french cookie turned out crispy outside and soft inside… is it correct? Thanks again for sharing this in your cooking channel. ..so delighted with all your weekly generous recipe.
EugenieKitchen says
Glad to know that you tried this recipe already, Joey. Thanks. Surely it’s okay but definitely adding a little bit of salt is great for almost all sweet and salt baking recipes. And the inside of the cookies should be also rather dry and crispy. Baking for a few minutes more will be better.
joey joey says
Yup. Thanks Eugenie for your reply in twitter and blog.. you are
awesome and kind to share all cooking recipe & knowledge with us!
EugenieKitchen says
Hi, Surely possible with aluminium pan but grease the pan first before using. If you bake the cookies enough, it shouldn’t be that tricky getting them out of it.