Kouign amann

Kouign amann (pronounced something like "keen ahMAH") is a simple laminated dough. Basically, you enclose butter in dough, then fold it and roll it out and repeat a bunch of times so you have lots of fat-dough-fat-dough layers. This one has 27 layers, which sounds like a lot, but I only had to do three folds, or "turns." Croissants, puff pastry, and danishes are all laminated doughs. Kouign amann is similar to a croissant, but with the addition of sugar.

This turned out pretty well for being my first attempt at laminating. I ended up with a higher fat to dough ratio than intended because I messed up the enclosing-the-butter part, but I don't think that had a huge impact on the final product.

It smelled amazing while it was baking because the sugar sprinkled on top was caramelizing. I ate way too much of it. And I made two. My co-workers will thank/resent me for bringing the rest in tomorrow.

The recipe I used came from Joe Pastry, which may be my very favorite baking site. His kouign amann looks a lot better than mine, as it should.

Boston Cream Pie

This is my Boston cream pie. I thought it failed. But letting it sit longer makes a huge difference in the quality because the pastry cream gets a chance to soak into the sponge-y cake. It was delicious.

I used Greg Patent's recipe from Origins (found online here) because he dedicated a lot of time to tracking down the true cake.

While I sincerely appreciate and value authenticity, I think baking is a place where tinkering and change are totally acceptable. Next time, I'll skip the almonds (they got soggy from the pastry cream that glues them to the side of the cake). I'll also mess with the chocolate topping (a simple mixture of chocolate and cream) because it turned out chewy, almost rubbery. I'll up the ratio of rum to water (brushed onto the cake layers before assembling) because I couldn't taste it at all in the final product. But the cake and the pastry cream were just right.

Pastry cream might be my favorite substance. I was happy to find that this recipe left me with more than a cup extra.