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Kouign Amann

A laminated dough with the sugar folded between the layers rather than mixed in, so it caramelises into the pastry as it bakes.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (butter).

Ingredients

Method

  1. THE SUGAR GOES BETWEEN THE LAYERS, NOT IN THE DOUGH. Scattered onto the dough at each fold, the way butter is in a croissant. In the oven it melts, meets the butter already there, and caramelises inside and underneath the pastry -- which is the entire character of the thing. Mixed into the dough instead, it dissolves, you get a sweet bread, and nothing caramelises anywhere.
  2. WHICH MEANS IT WILL LEAK, AND THAT IS EXPECTED. Sugar and butter run out of the bottom and set as a hard caramel shell. So it is baked in a tin or ring rather than flat on a tray, and the tin is buttered and SUGARED, because that leaked caramel is the best part and you want it caught against the pastry rather than spread across the oven.
  3. THE SUGAR IS ADDED ON THE LAST TWO FOLDS ONLY. Added from the first, it dissolves into the dough over the hour of folding and you are back to sweet bread.
  4. SALTED BUTTER, and it is not a flourish -- the salt is what stops 250 g of sugar being sickly.
  5. COLD HANDS AND A COLD DOUGH, as for any lamination. Sugar makes this one slacker and stickier than puff pastry, so it needs the fridge more often, not less.
  6. Flour, yeast, salt and water mixed and kneaded 5 minutes to a soft dough. Risen 1 hour.
  7. The cold butter beaten between paper into a 15 cm square.
  8. The dough rolled to a 25 cm square, the butter laid on at 45 degrees and the corners folded over to enclose it.
  9. Rolled to a rectangle three times as long as wide and folded in three. Chilled 30 minutes.
  10. A second fold the same way, a quarter turn first. Chilled 30 minutes.
  11. THIRD FOLD: rolled out, then 125 g of the sugar scattered evenly over the whole surface before folding in three. Chilled 30 minutes.
  12. FOURTH FOLD: the same with the remaining 125 g. Chilled 30 minutes.
  13. Rolled to about 1.5 cm thick and cut into 8 squares. Each square's corners folded into its middle and pressed down, then set in a buttered and SUGARED muffin tin or rings on a lined tray.
  14. Proved 45 minutes, then baked at 200C for 30 to 35 minutes until very dark and bubbling. TURNED OUT WITHIN 2 MINUTES, or the caramel sets and welds them in. Eaten warm.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes