When you have 4 hours to spare

kouign amann

I recently saw these pastries featured on Food Networks, "Best thing I ever ate, Salty."  They are called Kouign Amann (@ Les Madeleines).  They are butter pastry cakes layered with sugar.  I did some research and found a recipe by David Lebovitz (here).  I've been very eager to try this recipe  and I have announced it at work and on FB.

This recipe calls for about 3 hours of making and resting time and another 45minutes to bake.  The only day I had that kind of time was Sunday.  This is how it went.

 waiting for the yeast to activate.

 I set the timer for 10 minutes and waited patiently.

 Cubed 1 stick of salted butter. 

David said to use to good salted butter so I used Kerry Gold.

 Then you work the dough and let it rest an hour.

 Roll the dough out and put butter and sugar in the middle of the dough and fold it into thirds.

 Let it chill in the fridge for another hour and roll it out. This is where I did things a little different.  I cut them into squares so they can fit in the muffin pan.

 Placed 2 squares into the muffin pan, butter, sprinkle with sugar and bake. 

I baked them for 20 minutes.

This is what they look like when they came out of the oven.

Did you see the link I posted of Les Madeleines?  The Kougin Amann I saw on the show and on their website are flaky "croissant " like pastries.  But, according to Wikepedia and David Lebovitz, Kougin Amann is a cake.  My Kougin Amann turned out like a cake.  Is anyone else confused?  I think Les Madeleines nixed the sugar in the dough to make a puff pastry then sprinkled sugar and salt on top.


Has anyone ever had these pastries?  I may just have to order them to see how different  these Kougin Amann's are at Les Madeleines compared to mine/David's.  The end result however, is that they are delicious and my coworkers will enjoy them immensely!