Cocktail hours are fantastic options for dinner party hosts who 1) want to get everyone in the mood for the delicious food they are about to serve 2) want to encourage guests to break the ice and look up from their smart phones, and 3)
need an extra hour to put the finishing touches on dinner without suffering the hangry stares of the masses. But who wants to make ANOTHER dish, especially if you are low on time, energy, and ingredients? The answer: put it in a palmier! 

Palmiers are elegant, savory, deceptively simple French pastries that can be made with quite literally anything you have laying around in your refrigerator. Have some leftover deli slices from this week's lunch? Schmear on some mustard and put it in a palmier. Nothing around besides raspberry jam and cheddar cheese? Put it in a palmier. Extra tomato sauce laying around? Sprinkle on some extra Parmesan cheese and oregano and put it in a palmier.

If you keep a box of frozen puff pastry dough around, you will never be left without an astonishingly simple and deceptively fancy snack for your pre-dinner crowd. Another excellent attribute of palmiers is that they can be made way in advance by assembling them and throwing them into the refrigerator or freezer for up to a week, and then into the oven about an hour before you want to eat them. All you have to do is roll out the pastry, spread on your toppings, fold, cut, and bake. Have I made my case yet for the palmier? 

While palmiers can definitely handle a good refrigerator clean-out, this one was a bit more intentional. It is made by re-hydrating and processing dried figs
into a gorgeous paste, and then topping it with bits of Roquefort cheese. This cocktail hour snack is crunchy, creamy, savory, salty, and a bit sweet. I absolutely love the crunchy seeds of the figs, and the rosemary really cuts through the richness of it all. This snack pairs excellently with almost any wine or beer of your choice, and is guaranteed to impress.

Fig, Rosemary, and Roquefort Palmiers (makes 20-24)  
10-12 dried figs
3 full rosemary stalks
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon cracked black pepper
1/2 lb Roquefort*
1/4 cup of all purpose flour
1 sheet of puff pastry, defrosted but still cold from the
refrigerator
 
(*Note* If you aren't as excited by strong cheese as I am, feel free to replace the Roquefort with cream cheese, but definitely add another half tablespoon of salt to the fig mixture.)
 
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove the hard stems of the figs with a knife. Throw the whole figs into a small pot and add enough water to come halfway up to the figs. Strip two of the rosemary stalks of their needles and add them to the pot. Cover the pot with a lid and simmer the figs on a medium flame until they are very soft (about 10-14 minutes). If your water evaporates before the figs are soft, add in another 1/2 cup.
 
Once the figs are soft, place them into a food processor along with the rosemary needles, the remaining cooking liquid, and the salt and pepper. Process the mixture until it comes together in a spreadable paste. If the mixture is too
thick or sticky, add a bit more water to loosen it up.
 
Use a bit of flour to dust your counter top and a rolling pin and roll out the puff pastry until it is a few inches wider on all sides. Don't be too worried about this step. You just want the pastry to be a bit thinner than it was when it came out of the package. Generously spread the fig mixture onto the pastry. You may not end up using it all, but definitely spread it all the way out to the edges of the pastry.
 
Pinch off small pieces of  Roquefort with your fingers and dot the top of the fig layer with it. Like the fig mixture, you may not end up using all of the cheese, but you definitely want to be generous with it. Strip the last rosemary stalk of it's needles and chop them up coarsely. Sprinkle the chopped needles over the Roquefort layer.
 
Now for the rolling: Roll the right side of the pasty up like you are rolling a poster, but stop when you come to the middle of the sheet. Now roll up the left side of the pastry exactly the same way. Using a very sharp knife, cut the rolled pastry into half-inch slices. Place each slice cut-side down onto the baking sheet. Bake the palmiers for 35-40 minutes, or until they are crispy, brown, and bubbling.

This dessert is a stunner. It is one of the most popular desserts I have ever made. It is also one of the most time-consuming desserts I have ever made. But don’t let that scare you off. Just because a 16 layer crepe cake is time consuming, doesn’t mean it’s somehow more difficult to make than any other dessert. In fact, you don’t even have to turn on your oven. All you need is a lazy Saturday morning* to assemble all the components and to busy yourself for an hour or so while the whole thing sets up in the refrigerator. I even broke it all down for you into 6 easy-to-follow steps.

Still not so sure? Ok, how about this: tender crepes smothered with alternating layers of boozy Bananas Foster, sweet and spicy peanut crème, smooth chocolate spread, and crunchy peanuts, erected into a towering colossus of decadence that seduces not only every single taste bud, but every single person you feed it to.

Yeah. I guess it’s not worth the effort.  

Crepes: makes 12-16 crepes
9 tablespoons of melted butter
4 ½ cups milk

9 eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup rye or buckwheat flour
¾ cup of sugar or honey
1 tablespoon of salt

Bananas Foster filling:
6 tablespoons butter
¾ cup brown sugar
6-8 bananas
¼ cup whiskey or rum (optional)
2 tsp salt

Peanut crème filling:
1 ½ cup heavy whipping crème**
1 cup mascarpone cheese
1½ cup peanut butter (I like crunchy best for this, but smooth works too)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 tsp cayenne pepper

Other ingredients:
non-stick spray or more butter for making the crepes
1 jar of Nutella
2 ½ cups salted and roasted peanuts, chopped
Extra powdered sugar for dusting

*Just a heads up: This whole thing takes about 3 hours to make from start to finish. And there are multiple steps. I organized the recipe as best I could, but definitely read through the whole thing before you jump in so you know what to expect.

**This is for making homemade whipped cream. If you don’t have a stand mixer or a hand mixer, just buy a container of ready-made whipped cream. Seriously, nobody will know the difference.

Step 1- Begin by making the crepe batter: Add all the ingredients to a large bowl and whisk it until it gets smooth. Put it in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Step 2- While the crepe batter is in the fridge, make the Bananas Foster filling: Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the brown sugar and stir. While that cooks, slice your bananas into ½ inch slices and throw them into the pan with the salt. Stir the bananas to coat them in the caramel mixture, but be careful not to mush them. Add the liquor if you are using it, give a few more stirs, and allow everything to cook for a few minutes. The bananas should get soft, but they should hold their shape. Remove the bananas from the heat, transfer them to a bowl, and put them in the fridge to cool.

Step 3- While the crepe batter and Bananas Foster chill in the fridge, make the peanut crème: Pour the heavy whipping cream into a large bowl and whip it until it forms stiff peaks. Set aside. Add the mascarpone and the peanut butter in a separate bowl and combine them with a hand mixer or a stand mixer or your very butch forearms until it gets fluffy. 

Add the powdered sugar, salt, and cayenne pepper. Fold in a little whipped cream into the peanut mixture at a time until the whole thing becomes light and spreadable. You might not use all of the whipped crème, and you may need to re-season it with more sugar or salt as you combine everything. Just taste as you go, and make sure it tastes sweet, peanuty, salty (in a good way), and a little spicy. Put the mixture in the fridge.

Step 4- Make the crepes: Pull the crepe batter out of the refrigerator and give it a good whisk. Heat a large, non-stick skillet over medium heat with some non-stick spray and/or a little butter. Pour batter into the center of the pan until it pools halfway out to the sides of the pan. Swirl the pan around so the batter spreads out to the very edges. DON’T TOUCH THE CREPE AT THIS POINT! Allow the crepe to cook, un-nudged for at least 45 seconds. Use a spatula to flip the entire crepe over and cook it on the other side for at least another 45 seconds. The crepe should be fully-cooked on both sides, but not crispy. Slide the crepe onto a plate, put a little more butter or non-stick spray into the pan, and make another crepe. And then another. And then another. Until you have used up all the batter. Cover the crepes with tin foil and throw them into the fridge to chill completely.

Step 5- Assemble! Before you begin assembling, make sure that ALL of your components are cold, except for the Nutella. Place one crepe down on the platter or serving dish that you want to serve the cake on. Coat it completely with some peanut crème, all the way out to the sides of the crepe. Sprinkle some chopped peanuts over the crème. Place another crepe on top and press it down gently. Cover the top of the second crepe with Nutella. Place another crepe on top and cover it with Bananas Foster and press down gently. Continue layering in this way until you have only one more crepe left. Place the last crepe on top and do not cover it with any of the fillings. You will see that the cake will start to form a dome shape as you build it. This is pretty unavoidable, but the smoother and more even your layers are, the less domed the final product will be. Cover the entire cake with plastic wrap and put it into the fridge for at least one hour.

Step 6- SERVE IT! When you are ready to serve the cake, dust the top with powdered sugar and garnish with extra chopped peanuts. If you have extra whipped cream left over, you can dollop it onto each individual slice because, you know, you have come this far.