Palets Bretons – French Salted Butter Biscuits from Brittany
Put just a few good quality basic ingredients together – salted butter, sugar, egg yolks, flour and baking powder – and what do you get? Irresistible Palets Bretons, the French popular buttery cookie!
These delicious sweet yet salty butter biscuits (cookies) may not be found in patisseries around Paris but I guarantee you’ll find them lining the aisles of sweet munchies in French supermarkets. But let me warn you: once you make them, you’ll not want to buy the regular brands again.
Very like Sablés Bretons, which are a thinner and shiny salted biscuit/cookie resembling shortbread (Sablé means sand in French, referring to the crumb-like texture of the dough), Palets Bretons (meaning “Breton disks”) are much thicker, airy and lightly crispy.
Perfect with an afternoon cup of tea, the best part is that Palets Bretons are not that sweet since they contain a large amount (about 20%) of the famous Breton salted butter from the North coast of France. This is what makes them compulsive eating!
Ideally, use good quality salted butter from Brittany for this recipe but – as this isn’t always easy to find in the UK or USA – it’s simpler to use unsalted butter and add good quality salt from Brittany such as fleur de sel from the Guérande, so that the resulting taste is more authentic.
I know you may be tempted to add vanilla, cinnamon, or lemon zest – but there’s nothing to beat them plain. Not only that, this is a handy recipe to have up your sleeve as it serves as a base for many chic yet easy desserts like cheesecake, mousse or even if it’s just a topping of pastry cream and fresh strawberries.
Many French chefs tell you to roll out the dough between two baking sheets and cut out circles using cookie cutters and bake them directly in pastry rings. As I’m making them at home and don’t have that many pastry rings (who does?), I find it so much quicker and easier to roll out the dough into a sausage shape and bake them in muffin moulds.
More Buttery French Teacakes & Biscuits
Love buttery French teacakes and biscuits like these Palets Bretons? Enjoy similar, quick and easy recipes (and not too sweet) all in the first chapter of my second book, Teatime in Paris!
You’ll find Financier teacakes (including gluten-free chocolate hazelnut), chocolate-filled Tigrés, Madeleines, Diamond biscuits, almond Tuiles, Canelés, Coconut macaroons … and that’s just part of the first chapter!
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Hi thank you for sharing this recipe. May I ask if the mould is necessary for this recipe? Thank you
Hi Ting,
Yes, the mould is necessary in order to keep the round shape even throughout baking, otherwise the biscuits will bake out flat. They will still taste good, however. I say a muffin mould but any tin with round cavities will be good.
First of all, thank you very much for sharing your recipe. I already tried several Palets Bretons recipes with no success. Your recipe is the first which came close to what I want to create. Especially the consistency of the dough I was able to handle easily. Now, after my first attempt using your recipe I know that in my oven the dough needs more time and stuff like that. And you are right about using silicone molds – they are perfect but I also used metal molds which was disappointing. Live and learn and practice – and all I need is a lot of practice. Thanks also for providing the quantities of the ingredients in grams and all the other details I don’t have to convert. That’s absolutely great! Now I hope my English isn’t too bad.
Greetings from Germany
Guten tag, Dorothee. How lovely to hear from you and to read your lovely words. Thank you so much – you’ve no idea how much this means, as I spend a lot of time developing and practising the recipes until they’re ready to go out. Also happy you are like us here in Europe seeing recipes in grams. I add ounces for the USA readers but guess the majority still use cups, which is not precise. I hope you’ll enjoy making the other recipes here. Vielen dank!
Hello I’m make the Diamond biscuits from my teatime in paris Cook book and it’s delicious and i can adapt other ingredients like chocolat, coconut, chocolat bits for to change the original versión and other shapes like pastry bag, sables the la mere poulard and chocolat inspired. Thanks and Kindle regards from México.
Thanks so much, Enrique. Yes, the Diamond Biscuits in “Teatime in Paris” are deliciously easy to adapt like this, just as I say in the book. So happy you’re enjoying them!
For me, Jill, this is the perfect kind of cookie to into meal. Just sweet enough to give closure, and better enough to make me happy!
Well said, David. I’m addicted to sweet and salty together. Compulsive eating!
Oh these look so good! Going to have to make them asap, and I will search out some French butter especially
Thanks Lucy – I hope you do make them, even if you don’t get the French butter 😉
I meant my friend FROM Brittany!
I seriously can almost taste these! They look like bits of buttery heaven to me! I just have to make these for my friend in Brittany using the butter I have bought which comes from…yep, Brittany! Brilliant! 🙂 Thank you for the wonderful recipe, Jill!
You managed to get butter from Brittany? How fabulous, Christina. And am so happy you’ll try these buttery salty crumblies. Last time I made them I had to make just half a batch to control myself!
I bet the lovely taste of butter really shines!!!
It certainly does Liz. All the more reason to ensure that the butter used is good quality.
I have seen these and wondered. They are usually wrapped in orangey transparent paper no? Yours look divine.
Loved baking with you the other day. I fumbled around while you watched patiently and giggled a Lot! I’ll post soon on out financiers!
Carol – I think you’re thinking of les Nonnettes, biscuits same shape but more like a cake, much softer and a speciality of Dijon. No, these are usually in normal biscuit packs. Now you’re making financiers, you’ll need to make these too to use up the yolks! Loved baking and giggling with you too in Ile-Saint-Louis x