It's Grant from ChefSteps.

And today I'm going to talk through

the kouign-amann recipe.

The reason why I'm going to talk through the kouign-amann recipe

is there's so many layers to how a recipe works

and why something works the way it does.

And hopefully, by talking through it

you'll feel that you're getting a little more information,

gaining a little more insights.

And you'll feel like, you know, you're right here with me

cooking in the kitchen.

So let's talk through it and hopefully you'll

learn something new today.

So you'll notice right off the bat, if you're

used to ever making kouign-amann,

it starts with laminated dough.

And in this video, the first three or so minutes

are really how to make laminated dough.

And if you only did the first three minutes of this recipe,

you'd be able to make croissants, pain au

chocolat, and other Danish too.

So the first step in kouign-amann

is obviously making the laminated dough.

And to get to the kouign-amann aspect after that,

really you're just coating it with sugar,

a lot of sugar, some salt, and baking the heck out of it

so you get this glassy outside.

But when I make laminated dough, and for this recipe,

you'll see I add a little more yeast than normal.

I like to add a lot of yeast for flavor.

So yes, in theory, you don't have to add a ton of yeast.

That's totally true.

But if you want to have some really

rich, flavorful croissants or kouign-amann

and you don't want to take weeks to ferment some dough,

you just add a little more yeast.

And that little bit of yeast is going

to rise a little bit faster.

It's going to make the dough a little more soft.

And it's going to taste really rich and savory, actually.

So when making laminated dough, or a dough

for the kouign-amann, we start with really high-protein flour,

which in this case we're using pastry flour.

It's a little less rich in protein

than bread flour, which is going to give you

that nice spring and that pull and that chew, but still have

enough softness to it where you're

going to have a tender pastry.

That's also where all the fact comes in.

All that butter makes it nice and tender.

So we start off with a really good flour, pastry flour.

You could use a bread flour.

I wouldn't recommend using an AP flour,

because a recipe like this is just so much work

and takes so much love, I wouldn't

want to take the chance on All Purpose flour.

You just want to buy a good flour.

It's not any more expensive.

It just takes a little extra work to find.

But once you get going, you'll see

it's pretty straightforward.

And I would say the key insight for making

laminated dough at home, the one thing you've got to have,

is you've got to have patience, because you really

want to make sure as you're creating

all those hundreds of layers in the laminated dough

that you've got the right texture.

The actual dough and the butter when you start folding them,

they need to be the same texture,

because if the butter's rock hard out of the freezer,

the dough's just going to get crushed over it.

Or if the butter is way too soft and the dough's firm,

it's going to slack out and squeeze out the sides.

So the trick, especially when making laminated dough by hand,

without a sheeter-- a sheeter's that big giant machine

that you see in every pastry shop

where they run the dough through.

It goes forward and backwards and forward and backwards

and progressively thinner.

Makes life way easy.

But at home we don't have sheeters.

I don't even have one at ChefSteps,

so we make our laminated doughs by hand.

So when you make them by hand, it's

really important to have the right texture

between the butter and the dough.

And what that means is you've got

to go back and forth from the refrigerator.

So you see in this video, since we

have to go back and forth from the refrigerator so often,

and you might have other things you're cooking,

or it might be an hour from the first time you fold it

to the second time you fold it or the third time you fold it.

You can forget how many times you fold it.

So one of the things we do that I learned from an old pastry

chef that I used to work with, especially

in a bakery or restaurant, where you've got so many

projects you're going on, so many projects you're juggling,

is you take dough.

First time you fold it, put one fingerprint in it.

Second time you fold it, two fingerprints,

three fingerprints.

That way, if you leave for a day or someone takes

over your work, or even you just get lost

and you're confused-- I do this all the time when I take it

out, I'm like, crap, how many times have I folded it?

So I'll see those little finger marks right there.

Tells me three times I've folded it.

Once I got to three times, that's

when you're ready to go anyway.

At that point, I think you have about 240 layers

for laminated dough.

And when it gets into kouign-amann--

so we made our laminated dough, and now I

want to make kouign-amann.

And just an insider's secret here.

If you know you're going to make the laminated code

for kouign-amann and not say croissants,

you can hurry up, meaning you can rush through

the laminated dough process a little faster than you

can with a croissant, because you're not

going to be as aware of those hundreds of little layers

as much as you will be in a croissant.

It's just a different texture, so you

can speed through your laminating dough process.

I think I've done it beginning to end

as fast as a couple hours.

And before you knew it, I was ready to roll out and get

my kouign-amann ready.

So whether you buy your laminated dough from the store,

honestly, or you make it just like in this recipe,

you're going to roll it out when it's nice and chilled

and you're going to hit it with loads of salt and sugar.

And you need a cupcake mold, and hit that cupcake mold

with butter and loads of salt and sugar too.

And what that salt and sugar's going

to do for the kouign-amann is it's

going to bake into a really nice glassy glaze.

If you just add sugar, it's just going to be kind of bland,

so you want to get a good amount of salt

in there too for flavor.

So we take our kouign-amann that we've

rolled out and hit with sugar and we fold the little ends in

and we push them down into the mold.

And you don't want to pack it down into a dense puck,

because you're going to end up with a real dense dough

after that.

What you want to do is just kind of fold it, tuck it into there,

and walk away.

And so there's two things here.

You can leave the kouign-amann in the fridge

to proof for say an hour or two or three hours.

And you'll get a fluffier, cakier inside and a little bit

bulkier kouign-amann in the end.

Or you can pop them right in the oven.

I like to pop them right in the oven,

because I kind of like a dense interior

and having that nice glassy exterior on the outside.

And the thing I always wanted a kouign-amann

to be when I was in France is exactly this.

I wanted them to be really buttery, really rich.

They've got that potent savoriness

from the yeast, and just this really nice glassy

crunch on the outside.

I'm watching Emmett eat them now.

Looks so good.

I haven't made these in a couple months.

I've really got to make some more.

EMMETT: Mmm.

It's so good, Grant.

GRANT CRILLY: I love these things, man.

This kouign-amann's so good.

EMMETT: Yeah.

GRANT CRILLY: This is making me want to-- like

I got to make cassoulet.

I've got to make a bunch of pork belly

for some shoots coming up.

And now all I want to do is go make kouign-amann.

Whoo.

Man.

We did such a good job with this recipe.

I really want people to try it.

It looks complicated, but it's really not that difficult.

And it is just so amazing.

And you can't get a kouign-amann like this in any bakery.

I don't care what city you live in.

You're not going to be able to get a kouign-amann like this.

They're just something special.

Really, really, really beautiful.

They're worth the effort.

I want to hear that like [CRUNCH], glass in there.