French Butter Cakes Kouign Amanns Recipe

How to make it

---

• Start by mixing the flour, yeast and salt with the butter and water until you get a smooth dough.
• It will be quite dry as there are not eggs and almost no butter - yet.
• Knead this détrempe for a few minutes, then wrap in plastic foil and leave in the fridge to rise for one hour.
• Make sure it's well covered so that the dough does not grow a crust by drying out.
• The dough will have risen and turned the plastic wrap in a transparent zeppelin:
• We will now apply a simple technique to intertwine multiple layers of butter in the dough.
• Stretch the dough in a rectangular shape 3 times as long as it is wide using a rolling pin.
• Wrap the butter in a transparent foil and put in the microwave for about 20 seconds to soften it.
• Roll the pin over the wrapped butter to turn it into a paste (beurre pommade).
• You don't want liquid butter so don't overdo it:
• Spread the butter mixture over the central third of the dough.
• Leave about one inch free space on either sides so the butter won't be squeezed out too easily.
• Fold the dough over the butter:
• Turn by 90° so that the gluten will be stretched in all directions and stretch until it reaches the same size and shape as before:
• Fold it again to make more layers of butter:
• :
• Wrap with plastic foil and put in the fridge for a further 30 minutes.
• Sprinkle sugar on the working surface as you would flour, and put the dough on the sugar so that it will not stick.
• Turn by 90° and roll the dough once more in the usual shape, then sprinkle lots of caster sugar on top.
• Turn upside down fold the dough over itself like before.
• This will create layers of sugar intertwined with the butter layers in the dough:
• Turn by 90° and roll the dough one last time, then cut 3 inches (8cm) squares or bigger. .
• Put some more sugar on the working space.
• Lay the squares on the sugar and fold the corners into the center to make a round shape:
• In Britany people don't use jams on kouign amann, but I recommend you try at least a couple with some dark or red jam such as blackcurrants or raspberries.
• Just put a spoonful in the center and fold around it like a bird nest.
• Continue until all the dough has been used.
• Prepare some pastry circles of the same size.
• You don't really need to grease the circles as the dough has so much butter it won't stick.
• Leave the dough to rise a further 30 minutes
• . Heat the oven at 180° Celsius and bake about 25 minutes or until the top is well colored.
• Remove from the oven, take out from the circles and leave for a couple minutes.
• You can east them warm or cold but don't leave them overnight or you'll lose crunchiness and texture contrast.
• Note: caster sugar is superfine sugar, and refers to all the sugar used in this recipe
• Note: weigh ingredients for best results
• 1 dl equals1/10 of a liter
• 2.5 dl eqauals one cup