Recipe

French Butter Cakes Kouign Amanns Recipe

Add Step-by-Step Photos	Midgelet / All my dishes 1 year, 4 months ago Translated as "butter cakes", this puff pastry dessert takes time but what you get are these wonderful sweet ,buttery, crisp pastries that are popular in France. Many are filled with jam or preserves. Served with coffee or cocktails. Prep:240m Cook:25m Servings:12	Midgelet
	pastries french puff paste

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Fans

herby

Ingredients

225 gr white flour

10 gr melted butter

1.5 dl cold water

5 gr yeast (dry or fresh)

pinch of salt

225 gr butter

225 gr caster sugar + 50gr for the workspace

400 gr red berry jam or preserves ( raspberryblacberry, cherry, etc. )

Directions

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