For this recipe I'm going to give you two options, because the dough isn't completely simple to make. I learned how to make it while in culinary school in Paris and mine still don't always turn out perfectly. The trick is to keep your dough really cold and work as quickly as possible throughout the process. If you're worried about not getting this one, rest assured because you can just buy filo and get a pretty good end result as well. My dad is completely obsessed with these and recently told me he was proud bc he's never eaten more than 10 a day (which he apparently thinks is very little).
If you buy your own filo all you'll need is some granulated sugar.
If you are brave and want to make your own:
500g of flour
75g of melted butter
250 ml water
10 g salt
300g of cold butter flattened to a rectangle
Whisk the water and the salt until dissolved, add the melted butter. Add the flour and combine using a pastry scraper as if you were "cutting" the dough until just combined. Place in the fridge until cooled.
Roll out the dough using some flour into a rectangle. Place the flattened butter into the center of the dough and fold the edges of the dough around the butter. Make sure the seams of the dough are completely closed around the butter and then roll it out until the dough is the length of your rolling pin. Fold over a third of the length of the rectangle and then another third and then roll it out again. You will need to repeat this step 4 times until moving on to the next step and it's easiest if you refrigerate the dough after each fold before rolling it out again and try to touch the dough as little as possible.
Once you've finished your 4 turns (or using your store bought dough) cover your work surface with sugar and roll out your dough sprinkling the top with sugar. Fold it once more and roll it out, continuously adding sugar as you go (the more the merrier in my opinion). You want to roll out the dough relatively thin in a long rectangle, fold the shorter sides inwards to the middle and then fold over the middle, adding more sugar, which will then create your hearts.
Take a sharp knife and cut 1 cm pieces of the dough (you can even put them in the fridge again at this point just to be safe they'll keep their shape). When you lay them onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper make sure you leave some space in between pieces, because they'll puff up.
Bake for about 20 min or until golden brown and then flip the palm hearts with a spatula and bake for another 10 minutes or until crisp and golden. Mine needed more time to become real nice and brown. They do keep well in a tin box but you might not even need one for your first try, they are eaten real quickly.
Photos by Marion
