Bakery Stall · Breton Pastry

Kouign-Amann

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Its name is simply Breton for "butter cake" — and it earns the name with nearly equal parts butter, sugar, and dough.

Yeasted dough is laminated with thick layers of salted butter and sugar, folded repeatedly like puff pastry, then baked until the sugar caramelizes into a shatteringly crisp, glazed crust around a soft, buttery interior. Breton bakeries and market stalls sell it whole or by the wedge, still warm from the oven.

Why it's made this way: It is credited to Yves-René Scordia, a baker in Douarnenez, around 1860; the popular story says he stretched a short supply of flour with extra butter and sugar, and the result became one of Brittany's most famous exports.