More often than not, a recipe will grab me. I might spy it on a blog or catch a glimpse on a food show and that little kernel of information somehow finds its way into my cerebral cortex and blooms. As that recipe grows in the need to be made (sending me messages: "Find me on the Internet" and "Print me out!"), I start to plan out when.
About two weeks ago I picked up the April 2014 Bon Appetit from my magazine pile and took it with me to read while waiting for an appointment.
When I got to this page, this recipe seed jumped into my brain and began to bloom.
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| Page 43 April 2014 Bon Appetit Magazine |
I've wanted to attempt "lamination", a technique where dough is wrapped around a thick sheet of cold butter and folded, rolled, folded, rolled...etc., for ages. As described by Claire Saffitz in Bon Appetit, kouign-amann is a "sort of denser, sugar-crusted croissant made with indecent amounts of butter". She wasn't wrong.
It was "Buttery Goodness".
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| butter, a little sugar and a pinch of salt for the "butter block" |
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| butter block...more of a rectangle |
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| butter block all wrapped up and ready for the freezer |
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| dough and butter block ready for lamination |
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| enclosure of butter block in dough |
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| first fold - wrapped in plastic and put into freezer/fridge for chilling time |
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| first roll out. No oozing butter ~ a very good sign |
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| second fold again wrapped up in plastic and into the freezer/fridge to chill also did this a third time |
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| final roll out you can see chunks of butter where I didn't fully mix it as well as I should |
This is where all of the work became super fun. My older son and I were working on this project together and once he made the cuts, we could see the layers of dough where the cuts had been made.
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| Twelve squares |
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| See the layers? We were gleeful at 10:45 pm when these were ready for their last 8 hours in the fridge. |
These were
amazing
. Truly. Worth all of the effort and time. I would change two things ~ making sure to completely mix the butter before spreading on to the parchment paper to make the butter block and possibly using a little less butter. There was so much butter that it oozed out of each muffin cup and dripped on to the bottom of my new baking oven. Burning butter smoke is not the greatest at 7am.
I will make Buttery Goodness again as it was very well received. Go here to read the step by step directions.
Time to go clean my oven and start preparations for my Easter Meal tomorrow,
Ciao~
Susan
