This ain't slice and bake material sugar...

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It all started with a video interview I was editing. (I edit videos for the YouTube channels "ExpertsnAuthors" and "FlipReport".)

The video was about a small business owner who had started a "bakery" with the help of a third party kitchen. Basically she is able to rent a kitchen space to bake her pastries and then she sells them in upscale hotels or markets, etc. She was showing off her products during an event at the kitchen space where other small business in the food business were showing off their products as well.

Boy, was my mouth watering... this was fun to work on. I got to look at the all food she had out at the event and then again when I went on her website to pull more images for the video. Her stuff looks amazing. You can check out the interview with Las Delicias Patisserie to see what I mean.)

During the interview she mentioned she makes "Kouign Amann", which is "a sweet and bready Breton butter cake." Breton meaning from Britanny in France. I couldn't get the name or the picture out of my head so I googled it... especially since I love baking and was hankering for something sweet but filling to snack on.

Let me just say that when you google this pastry, not many people have heard of it in the US or they're just too scared to make it, due to the many hours needed. I read a few recipes and a few blog posts before settling on this handy article from OregonLive.com - Rise and shine: Kouign aman achieves pastry perfection. I liked it especially because it included a recipe that had the measurements in cups & tbps and that used dry yeast. Most other recipes I saw called for a yeast I have never heard of. So no, no thank you, this recipe is perfect. And so of course, I could not resist waiting too long before I printed out the recipe and made sure I had all the ingredients. You can use it to follow along with my photo log if you'd like.

Day 1
To start off, you proof the yeast, mix some flour, melted butter and salt together, mix up the yeast with the flour mixture to make a dough and then cover it with plastic. Let rise for an hour.

Before


After


Once the dough has risen, you have to punch it -YES - and wrap it in plastic and then put in the fridge for a few hours. When you take it out, it looks like this heavenly ball of dough.


Meanwhile, I had to cut up a lot of butter into squares and put in it the fridge as well to chill. After 2 hours I believe, I took both out. The dough needed to be rolled out to some crazy square measurement. Then the butter squares are placed in the middle.

Then I folded the dough over the butter so it is entirely covered.

Next, following certain measurements again, I had to roll the dough out, I think 24inches long by 8inches wide.

Not easy when the butter inside is chilled but definitely doable.

Next, I was again stumped for a few moments with the recipe but finally figured out what folding the dough "like you would a business letter" meant.


This is a 3-repetition process, so I had to wrap the dough in plastic again for 20 minutes. Take it out, repeat rolling to crazy measurements. Fold it up. Put it back in the fridge. Chill for an hour. Take out. Roll out to crazy measurements again. Fold up again. Put back in fridge to chill overnight. Phew!

End of day 1.

Day 2

Today I took out the dough and rolled it out to 24inches long by 12 inches wide. Then I started to cut up it up using a pizza cutter into 4inch by 4 inch squares.


Next, on a baking pan** that preferably has either parchment paper or a silicone mat, it's time to shape the squares. For each square, take the four corners, and bring to the center and press firmly together and then down. Repeat 17 more times for the remaining squares.

**Here is where amateurs at this recipe falter. You must, if you are considering making this, make sure your almost-ready-to-bake squares are in a baking pan with sides. The sugar you need to sprinkle over each square will melt in the oven into a fast moving sticky mess and cascade off a flat pan down onto your oven's bottom and start to burn, causing your oven to smoke and house to smoke over too. FUN! I learned fast while bakingthe first batch and quickly put the second batch into the proper pan. Now I still need to clean the oven.

Once all the squares have been shaped properly into the "kouign amann" format, sprinkle each square with a teaspoon of sugar. Cover with plastic.



Let rise for about 30 - 40 minutes... So close yet so far!!



Once the squares have risen, or really, 40 minutes later, set oven to 425 degrees.

When the oven was ready to go, I only put one batch in at a time, which ended up being fine, though I would like to try it again by putting them all in at the same time. Don't know how that could change baking times.

Almost to there!

Bake these lovely items for 30-35 minutes, but make sure to rotate the pan at the 15 minute mark to ensure equal baking.

Finally, once finished baking, let cool on wire racks... if you can resist for long.

So while I learned a valuable lesson about sugar melting properties... I can totally say that all the hours and labor (rolling it out this morning was quite the process) I highly recommend this delicious yet basically never heard-of pastry, especially for coffee lovers. These are PERFECT for either breakfast or that afternoon coffee break treat.