I remember cooking in Italy with a friend, and as she was dousing another platter of vegetables in olive oil, she said, “In Italy olive oil is a flavor. It’s not just to keep things from sticking to the pan.” I feel the same way about butter in France. If you’ve had a warm croissant from a pastry shop, you know how important (and transcendent) the flavor of butter is.
Palets bretons are oversize cookies that feature butter, and because they’re from Brittany, they’re traditionally made with beurre salé, salted butter. If you’re still one of those people who thinks one should use only unsalted butter for baking, these generously sized buttery cookies will change your mind. These cookies are even better made with French or European-style higher-fat butter.
Recipe information
Total Time
1 hour (plus 1 hour for chilling)
Yield
Makes 8
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
In a small bowl, whisk together 1 cup plus 1 Tbsp. (150 g) all-purpose flour and 1½ tsp. baking powder, preferably aluminum-free.
Step 2
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or by hand), beat 6 Tbsp. (85 g) salted butter, cubed, at room temperature, and 7 Tbsp. (90 g) sugar together on medium speed for 1 minute, until well combined. Stop the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add 2 large egg yolks and ½ tsp. pure vanilla extract. Beat until smooth and creamy, another minute, stopping the mixer midway during mixing to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Step 3
Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture, stirring until smooth, adding ½ tsp. flaky sea salt, such as fleur de sel or Maldon, at the last minute. (Even if using a stand mixer to make the dough, I sometimes finish this step by hand with a flexible spatula, when the dough starts coming together in the mixer bowl, since I don’t like to overwork it.)
Step 4
Using your hands, gently knead the dough until it’s smooth, then transfer the dough to a countertop and roll until it’s a thick log, 5" (13 cm) long and 2" (5 cm) in diameter. Flatten the ends with your hands so they’re no longer rounded, then wrap the log in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.
Step 5
To bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Very lightly butter eight indentations of a 12-cup muffin tin that measures 2" (5 cm) across the bottoms. (Or use two 6-cup tins.) Slice the dough into eight equal portions and place them in the prepared muffin tin, pushing them down so they’re sitting all the way in the bottom of the indentations. Put the two rounded slices from the ends of the logs of dough rounded side down in the tin, so their flat side is up.
Step 6
Bake, rotating the tin in the oven midway during baking, until the cookies are light golden brown across the top, 25–35 minutes.
Step 7
Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes in the muffin tin. Gently release the cookies from the tin with the aid of a butter knife, then transfer them to a wire cooling rack.
Do Ahead: The cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
