Baking the Books: Incarnate

 Welcome to Baking the Books, where I bake things inspired by my favorite novels! Since I do a lot of reading and a lot of baking, it was only a matter of time before the two things overlapped. It's just part of my evil plot to get books involved in every single aspect of my life.

Previously on Baking the Books: Harry Potter Pumpkin Pasties

When I asked on Twitter a few months back about what books you guys would like to see me bake, I got way more suggestions than I thought I would. Someone (I can't remember who, sorry!) asked me to bake Incarnate by Jodi Meadows, which is a book I've read and loved. The problem is, I couldn't remember a single food in it. Baking the Books is hard, y'all, unless I'm doing Harry Potter or Willy Wonka or something else that already has food in it. I think I probably made some joke about baking a cake shaped like Sam or something (mmm, Sam).

And then I looked at the cover for a little bit. Which has a big, beautiful butterfly on it. And my brain went duh. Butterfly biscuits! Also known as palmiers or elephant ears. But for the purposes of Baking Incarnate, we are obviously going to refer to them as butterfly biscuits.

 

Plus, they're shaped like butterflies.

Not only are they inhumanly delicious, but they're also super easy to make. Just three ingredients and a couple easy steps and no real measurements. They are flaky and delicate. Like Ana, the Newsoul, the only person in her world who hasn't lived for thousands of years and probably won't be reincarnated like them either, these biscuits feel transient. No, seriously, they don't last long. They are too delicious. Soon they will be all gone.

Ingredients:

Melted butter
Sugar
Frozen puff pastry, thawed
Melted chocolate (optional)
Cocoa powder (optional)

Assemblage:

Prepare a clean table or counter top. If you don't want to work directly on a marble counter, you can work on top of a non-stick mat or large cutting board. Heavily sprinkle sugar over the entire surface. Place one thawed sheet of puff pastry, unrolled into a flat sheet, on top. Roll it out over the sugar with a rolling pin until it's flatter and larger and the dough is thinner.



Brush the top of the puff pastry with melted butter all over. Sprinkle with as much sugar as you want (hint: you want as much as possible). For chocolate palmiers, instead of brushing with butter and spriling with sugar, brush the puff pastry with melted chocolate and sprinkle lightly with cocoa power. Obviously, I forgot to take a picture of that, because I'm awesome.



Now, fold the edges of the puff pastry in like a scroll, towards the center. The fold should be about a fourth the size of the whole. Fold them again so the two folds meet exactly in the middle of the dough. Then fold them over again.



Brush the top of the dough log with butter and roll in sugar or sprinkle with sugar. Repeat with the bottom. Basically, cover the outside of this sucker with butter and sugar. You can go light on this or skip this altogether, but this is where so much of the sinful deliciousness comes in.



If you are using a second puff pastry sheet, repeat all the steps.

Chill your dough logs in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes. When you take them out again, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Slice the dough logs into 3/8-inch thick slices and then place them on baking sheets lined with tinfoil.

 

Now, the baking times are really tricky for me to tell, because my oven is very strange and it took a lot longer than it should have. This is definitely a recipe where you're going to have to watch it. Check on them after ten minutes. If and when the bottoms are caramelizing, flip them over and bake them until the tops turn golden.

 

Take the palmiers out of the over and remove them from the baking sheet immediately. Let them cool on a rack or cutting board. They'll turn deliciously hard and crunchy as they cool. AND THEN YOU CAN EAT THEM ALL BECAUSE THEY ARE SCUMPTIOUS

Enjoy!