The trimmings from pie dough make scrumptious caramelized cookies.

I originally got the idea for these cookies from the little palm-shaped French cookies called Palmiers. In my job at the British tea shop years ago I used to make dozens of Eccles Cakes, a traditional British pastry made with puff pastry circles. I’d end up with lots of trimmings from the pastry and rather than waste it I would piece it together and roll Palmiers.

This is not really a recipe, just a way to use up the trimmings from a pie crust. In fact, my perfect pie dough recipe is purposely scaled to make more than enough dough for a two crust pie specifically so I have enough scraps left over to make these cookies.

For my family these have become a favorite treat whenever I roll pie dough. We snack on these sweet little gems while waiting for the pie to cool. In fact, they’re usually gone before the pie is even out of the oven.

Gather the scraps from rolling the pie dough into a loose ball. The scraps can be refrigerated or frozen to roll later.

Roll the dough in the sugar, adding more sugar as it’s absorbed into the dough.

The sugar crystals are embedded in the dough.

The dough can be cut into any shape. Don’t worry if they’re not perfect, they’ll go so fast you won’t have time to look at them.

Bake the cookies on parchment so the caramel won’t stick to the pan.

Don’t worry if some of the cookies get quite brown, even a little black on the bottom. They’ll still taste great.

Luckily, when I recently made a rhubarb pie for Easter dessert I also brought along these cookies. I figured I better get them out of the house since I’d already eaten way too many while waiting for the pie to bake. Good thing, since I messed up the pie and almost none of it was eaten. All the pie scrap cookies were gone in minutes. I’m not surprised since they are the perfect combination of flaky layers, caramelized sugar on the bottom and crunchy sugar crystals on top.

Often, the simplest things are the best.

These flaky, crunchy and caramelized cookies made from pie dough scraps are irresistible.

Pie Dough Scrap Cookies

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

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Ingredients

• Scraps from pie dough rolled for pie crust
• granulated sugar

Instructions

2. Gather the scraps up into a loose ball, don't knead
3. Liberally sprinkle the rolling surface with sugar
4. Liberally sprinkle the surface of the dough with sugar
5. Roll the dough to a 1/4" thick square or rectangle
6. Continually sprinkle sugar so the dough doesn't stick
7. Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into rectangles or squares
8. Bake on a parchment lined sheet pan until the bottoms are nicely caramelized and the tops are golden brown

Notes

If you want both sides caramelized, flip the cookies half way through baking.
You can slide the sheet pan with the cookies onto the bottom rack of the oven while the pie bakes on the middle rack.