Kouign Amann

The blog is officially one year old! And it's also the premiere of The Great British Bake Off season 9! I'm celebrating by publishing one of my favorite new (to me) bakes.

 I used to think Pain au Chocolat was my favorite pastry...and then I met these.

I made these for the first time this May, and since then have made them again...and again. No less than 6 times, I'm not joking. I was even brave enough to attempt these while visiting my sister in France, for her Breton relatives. They raved about them, and while you can never be sure if the adults are being critical enough, the french children gobbled them up with glee. So without sounding too full of myself, I'm assuming I have the knack down.

I used the Croissants de Boulanger recipe from the Joy of Cooking, modifying only the butter ingredient. Regular puff pastry uses unsalted butter, but Kouign Amann is a Breton pastry and traditionally made with salted butter. I'm told the butter choice is a regional thing. I finished with instructions on sizing and baking time and temp from this blog here.

Pounding out the butter and forming my first book fold.

You start by pounding out 3 sticks of salted butter with approximately 3 tbsp of all purpose flour into a 9x6" rectangle, forming a malleable dough. Wrap and refrigerate while making the pastry dough.

Once the dough is formed into a ball, let it rest for 5 minutes. After resting, roll the dough into a 15.5x8" rectangle. You then take the refrigerated butter and place it in the upper 2/3 of the dough, leaving a 1" border of dough all around the butter. You then fold the dough over the butter, covering all sides like a book. Roll this out to a 18x8" rectangle, turn and repeat the book fold. You now have your first turn and you can refrigerate the dough for up to 30 minutes to firm up the butter.

I'm told the idea is have the butter and dough be close to the exact same temperature so they move together without the butter melting out into the dough itself. You should be creating folded sheets of butter with every turn, which creates that flaky goodness everyone loves in a pastry. I found air conditioning and a marble roller to be helpful in this effort. Marble countertops would be even better and I'm envious if you have them. I also refrigerate for 30 minutes for my first fold and 15-20 minutes between the other 3 depending on humidity. 

Rolling out my layers. Adding sugar only to the last layer-per Paul Hollywood's instructions on the technical.

Once you add the sugar to the final layer it's completely debatable in my internet research how long to refrigerate. I've waited as little as 30 minutes to roll out to shape, and I've also waited as long as overnight. While waiting overnight makes it more difficult to roll out and shape in the morning, I've never had issue with it and I like it as an insurance policy that my butter doesn't melt out and flood my dough. It takes me awhile to get it long enough and I feel like I handle it a decent amount to get it in the tins. Ideally, a few hours resting in the fridge would be my ideal timeline for shaping them.

Roll out rested dough into an 8x24" rectangle and cut into 12 even 4" squares.

Once rolled out and cut into their 4" squares, you gather all 4 corners and shove them into **pre buttered** muffin tins. Trust me, butter the tins well, you need help getting out these caramelized sugar goodies.

You let these rise for about 30-40 minutes before baking for 40-45 minutes. You want to take them out when they're dark and look JUST about burned, but don't burn them. Nice tip, right? The recipe I follow has you pre-heat the oven to 400F but immediately drop to 350F when you put them in. I only forgot to lower the temp once...yes that batch was a bit singed. 

Also, don't forget to remove them from the tins and onto a cooling rack, as soon as it's humanly possible to do so without burning the tips of your fingers off. You cannot let these cool in the tins, they'll glue themselves in there.

Totally worth every second of hard labor rolling out dough and waiting around your kitchen between dough/butter refrigeration liasons. 

Dough:

3 sticks salted butter

3 Tbsp All Purpose Flour

Pound this into a 9x6" rectangle and refrigerate while making the dough

Mix together in a cereal bowl and let sit:

1 cup whole milk (warmed to 105-115F)

2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

1 Tbsp Sugar

In a larger bowl mix:

2 3/4 cup all purpose flour

2 Tbsp butter but into small cubes (I use my pastry cutter here)

1tsp salt

Make a well and add the warm milk mixture. Mix with your hands until it starts to come together and then pour onto a work surface working with your hands until its a nice round ball of dough. Let sit for 5 minutes before rolling out to 15 1/2 x 8" rectangle. From here you can place the butter and complete your 4 folds per the instructions above!

Go make these now! Or wait until winter when it's easier...