I'm gonna stick with calling these Gluten Free Elephant Ears. They are “palmiers,” but I don't think anyone wants to start trying to sound French. Or at least doesn't want me to start trying to sound French. Truth.
A note about the pastry dough: elephant ears begin with puff pastry. They just do. It's really exceeding easy to make puff pastry, and that link has step by step (by step) photos to guide you along the way. You can (and should!) make it way ahead of time, so the actual elephant ear making is dead easy. BUT. If you're just all, ‘no WAY I'm doing all that turning and folding and butter packeting,” you can still make gluten free elephant ears! Just use the Extra Flaky Buttermilk Biscuit dough from page 227 of GFOAS Bakes Bread, or even the Gluten Free Biscuits from the blog.
Whatever you call 'em, these super light and flaky pastries are a real personal favorite of mine. Every once in a long while, I make something for the blog (or a book) that I don't really care for. It happens! I don't tell you that, though. How silly would that be? I just talk about someone else loves it, or about how I love making it for someone else or something. But these pastry cookies? The layers and the sweetness and the flakiness and did I mention the layers?
These are simply the perfect cookies for a cup of tea. With lemon, please.
You'll find lots and lots of different methods out there for handling the pastry dough to make elephant ears. I don't personally care for the ones where you rooooollllll the ends of the dough together toward the center, and end up with, like, kind of a handlebar mustache. I like the fold once, fold twice, fold together sort of deal (see photos above). And I insist upon pressing down on the cut, raw cookies with a glass to compress the layers a bit before the final chilling and, finally, baking. It creates a much more integrated cookie that stays together, but still becomes super flaky as it bakes.
And for the love of Mike, don't skimp on the sugar. It helps keep the pastry tender, and caramelizes in the oven into the most gorgeous cookies the world has ever seen. —-> (Too much?)