KOUIGN-AMANN BY CHEFSTEPS.COM

KOUIGN-AMANN by Chefsteps

My close friend, Olivier, a French man, is arriving tomorrow night and will be staying with me and dear husband for about two weeks.

Last week while we were chatting online, I promised to bake him his native pastry, Kouign-Amann when he visits us this time. It is supposed to be his "birthday cake" as his natal day was last June 7th. I tell you, this is harder to do than baking a wedding cake! It takes 3  days to do it and my patience is reaching the ceiling. But when I think of how delicious this pastry tastes and how my good friend and dear husband love it, it is all worth every bit of my effort!

So, I have prepared the dough yesterday evening, Tuesday. Today is Wednesday and I laminated it at around 2 PM. Then the day after tomorrow on Friday for breakfast, I am baking it.  Ta-da!

I live in a tiny flat in San Francisco (because the rental cost is astronomical) that I have to make way to doing a trade off as far as baking and cooking are concerned. 

For the welcome dinner for Olivier, I am serving "baby back ribs" so this means that I am using my gas oven for this. Thus, I can't bake the Kouign-Amann afterwards because it needs a cool environment to process the pastry well. This is the problem in living in a studio. Yes, it is all so cute and cozy but whenever the temp of the oven or stove goes high, the fire alarm goes nuys, too. Ayayay! And yes, once it gets warm in my flat, this would affect the kneading process f the laminated dough's butter (it would melt while the thin layers of flour would start to break out). Plus,  the dough will stick to the melted butter and when lifted, or folded, it will get disintegrated. As you see, this is how serious to do this pastry. It is a hard one so to speak!

o0o

My first Kouign-Amann is a success!

Last year, after Olivier left in mid April 2017, I was so invigorated and inspired to learn to do this recipe (as if he got me into a spell to learn it), I got so glued to reading several recipes online in my desire to learn to bake this French pastry. One that stands out for me was the recipe provided by the two bakers who are actually scientists from Netherlands. As it is, I am aware of their website because they sell baking gadgets from Germany online and it was from them where I bought my pastry dough. I really did read it like a novel. Going back and forth, thinking of it night and day as I was salivating and imagining the taste, the endeavor (big time), etc. At the back of my mind, I was screaming, "What the heck, I will attempt to do this! And when I am in my creative process, my mojo works for me. Anything/everything goes! I will learn it! Do it! Finish it! Produce it!" And that exactly was what I did. After it was done, I sent Olivier the photos and he was amused with me (as always). "You are so creative!"  He would say.

Taste Test:
First, the aroma is buttery, sweet, caramel-y.

Second, my husband loved it and ate 4 pieces of this wondrous French pastry in one sitting and then again had 3 more before he went to bed. I had as much as he had,too! Now this tells you on how good this pastry is, and I passed the test!

If you are interested, read on and click the link at Kouign-Amann- Weekend Bakery

But the easier version is from KOUIGN-AMANN by Chefsteps

I will upload the photos of my baking of this recipe on Friday. Meanwhile, this was the montage of what I baked last April2 7, 2018. Enjoy!