Kouign-Amann

A couple weeks ago, my friend challenged me to make Kouign-Amann and I told her “I don’t have the patience to make puff or rough pastry.” Who has the time to laminate butter into dough? Then I thought, ‘What else do I have going on while being quarantined at home?’ Let’s give it a go!

After doing some research, I was debating between two recipes. The BCC’s recipe by Paul Hollywood (who else watches “The Great British Bake Off”?) and Food Wishes’ recipe by Chef John. I didn’t have caster sugar and Chef John had a good video so I decided to go with that.

Ingredients

For the dough

1 cup warm water

1 tsp dry active yeast

1 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

2 1/2 cups bread flour, plus more as needed

1 tsp kosher salt

For the seasoned sugar (mix, taste, and adjust)

2/3 cup white sugar

2 teaspoons of sea salt or kosher salt (less if you’re using a fine table salt)

For the rest:

8 ounces ice cold unsalted butter (2 sticks) for the pastry

1 tablespoon melted butter for the muffin pan

Okay, making the dough is simple if you have ever made any sort of raised dough. Combine water, sugar, and yeast—let it rest for about five minutes until foamy. I ended up using instant yeast so skipped the blooming process. Then added the melted butter, flour, and salt to the bowl with the yeast mixture. Once I got the dough mixed, I turned it out onto my work surface and knead the dough in more flour to get it to a consistency that I am used to. I ended up using a little more than two and a half cups of flour to get it smooth, slightly sticky yet elastic. I put it in a greased bowl for about one and half to two hours for it to rise and doubled in size.

I transferred the dough onto a floured surface and press it into a rough rectangle then rolled the dough to about 1/4 inch thick. Chef John recommends grating cold butter onto the dough, which is the same method I use for my biscuits and scones. Grating butter is dangerous, I always cut myself so another way is pounding out the butter into a rectangle between two sheets of parchment paper. After the butter is placed on the dough leaving a one-inch border, fold the rectangle width wise into thirds like you are folding a letter. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

While the dough is chilling, I used this time to make the sugar mixture. I used regular cane sugar and Jacobsen’s sea salt flakes. I buttered my silicon cupcake pan then dusting it with the sugar mixture during this time too.

After chilling, roll the dough into a large rectangle again and grate the second stick of butter over the dough again then fold into thirds. This is where the layers are going to built, roll the dough out for a third time into a rectangle then fold it into third once more. Repeat one more time before wrapping the dough in plastic and allowing it to chill for another hour in the refrigerator.

Pre-heated my oven to 375 degrees F before rolling out my dough for the final time. Instead of flouring the work surface, dust the counter with the sugar mixture and place the dough onto the sugar then sprinkle more sugar on top. I work in as much of the sugar mixture as I could while rolling out the dough into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick.

I used a pizza cutter to cut the dough into 12 even pieces. Then I fold the corners of dough so that it meets in the middle and pinch to form a “crown” before replacing into my cupcake pan. I sprinkle what was left of my sugar mixture over the top evenly. I allowed the dough to rest for another 10 minutes before popping it into the oven to bake for about 35 minutes (my oven took longer than the recommended 25 minute bake time). Since I used a silicon cupcake pan, it wasn’t necessary to transfer the Kouign-Amann immediately to a cooling rack. If you are using a metal pan then you want to transfer the pastries or the sugar will caramelize and stick to the pan. Let cool at least 5 minutes.

I like that the surface of my Kouign-Amann wasn’t caramelized completely because I don’t like that stick to your teeth feeling—the silicon mold did make the caramel pool at the bottom. Also would adjust the temperature of my oven to 400-425 degrees F next time since my layers split and didn’t hold that crown shape. The higher temperature would also make it a little more crispy. However, look at this beautiful layers! The lamination!