Grant Crilly is the Executive Director and cofounder of ChefSteps. Grant is a classically trained chef and, prior to ChefSteps, he worked on the award-winning cookbook series Modernist Cuisine and cooked at various restaurants, including L’Astrance in Paris, Busaba in Mumbai, and Mistral Kitchen in Seattle.

Grant Crilly

Kouign-amann (pronounced QUEEN-ah-mahn) are made of laminated dough—croissant dough—that’s about 50 percent butter and 50 percent yeasted dough. They’re generously dusted with sugar and salt right before baking, so they develop a thick, caramelized crust that’s at once savory and sweet but, at least with our recipe, mostly savory. Traditionally, kouign-amann are formed in the shape of a large cake, but we make individual portions in a cupcake pan for equal parts crunchy caramelization and tender, buttery center with every bite.These salty, buttery pastries hail from the coastal region of Brittany, in the northwest corner of France, where Celtic Breton tradition has prevailed since the great migration across the English Channel during the fifth and sixth centuries. It looks just like you might imagine a Celtic colony on the seacoast of France would: towering bluffs dropping straight into the sea; tiny stone houses dotting the emerald countryside; slate-colored steeples rising into the morning mist. The region is best known for its vast salt flats, where the coveted finishing salt, fleur de sel, is harvested. Here, tucked into wandering village streets, bakeries hawk this much-lauded pastry treasure, whose name literally means “butter cake” in Breton. We’re gonna be honest: they’re hard to make. They take a full day of investment, and you might not get them right on the first try. Your kitchen will be a mess. You may get stressed out. But when you do get them right (and you will), oh boy. Nary is there a prouder moment in the life of a dedicated home cook than when he or she presents a basket of handmade kouign-amann to flabbergasted friends and family. Serve them with a mug of hard cider, and you might as well move to Brittany and open a boulangerie-pâtisserie. And if you do, you’re probably not coming back. Chañs vat!Want to take this recipe even further? Swap in a full batch of our new <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-secret-to-mastering-croissants-at-home">Ultimate Croissant dough</a> here instead. It takes 3 days to make, but trust us—it’s worth it.

Kouign-Amann