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 was invented almost by accident around 1860 in Douarnenez, when a baker facing a flour shortage stretched his dough with extra butter and sugar instead — the improvised loaf became one of Brittany's most famous exports.