Author Hillary Davis of French Comfort Food is very fond of puff pastry. Good quality puff pastry, like Dufours, can be stashed in your home freezer for those times where you need quality and quickness.

I don’t know of anyone who is not instantly addicted to the classic French palmiers — aka Elephant Ears. Crunchy pastry coated with cinnamon sugar. Your first bite with have fragments exploding over your plate, your table, and, of course, you. There is no easy way to eat a full blown, full size palmier.

But, but what if you made them smaller. And what if you added in some chocolate and walnuts. You can just, with care, navigate the whole thing into your mouth, snap you lips shut, and consume. Well, maybe not the whole thing. Just half. There will still be crumbs, but now they will be a mixture of nuts, sugar, chocolate and cinnamon. With puff pastry, it's an easy, swift route to pastry paradise.

I’ve always enjoyed my palmiers for breakfast. These little gems can serve in that role, but there would be no guilt eating these anytime until midnight. After then, eating chocolate and cinnamon and sugar at, say 2AM, well, even I would feel a little guilt.

Crispy Cinnamon Walnut Chocolate Palmiers

Yield: serves 8

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces walnuts
• ½ cup chocolate chips
• ¾ cup sugar, divided
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• ½ tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 2 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed

Preparation:

In the food processor, process the walnuts, chocolate chips, ¼ cup (50 g) sugar, vanilla, and almond extract until well ground. Mix remaining sugar with cinnamon to make cinnamon sugar.

Lay out a piece of parchment paper that is 20 inches (50 cm) long on your counter. Pour a veil of half of the cinnamon sugar over the sheet in a rectangular area 12 inches (30 cm) long. Lay one sheet puff pastry over the cinnamon sugar and, using the rolling pin, roll it to 12 inches (30 cm) long. The cinnamon sugar will be pressed into the underside of the pastry.

Evenly spread half of the walnut mixture over the surface, pressing down gently to press it into the pastry. Imagine a line half way up the rectangle and begin to tightly roll the pastry from the bottom up to the halfway point. Turn 90 degrees and begin to tightly roll the pastry from the other end towards the halfway point. They are now meeting in the center. Press them together gently, cover with foil or plastic wrap, and refrigerate 45 minutes. Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry.

Preheat the oven to 425° 20 minutes before you want to bake the palmiers.

Unwrap one roll at a time and slice in ½ pieces. Lay each piece on a prepared baking sheet, leaving room in between them so they can spread as they bake. Repeat with the second roll on the second baking sheet.

Bake both sheets for 7-10 minutes, or until the bottoms are golden. Flip the palmiers and bake for another 3 minutes, until golden on top. Remove from oven and cool. [Although, eating them warm is very fun!]

Source: French Comfort Food by Hillary Davis [Gibbs Smith, 2014]