Kouign-Amann

Ingredients

• 300g strong white bread flour
• 7g instant dried yeast
• 6g fine sea salt
• 190ml warm water
• 250g cold salted butter, ideally a high-fat Breton or French block
• 200g caster sugar, plus 2 tbsp for the tins
• 20g softened butter, for the tins

Before you cook

• Weigh the flour, yeast and salt into a large bowl and stir them together with your hand.
• Take the 250g block of butter from the fridge and leave it on the counter for ten minutes so it bends without cracking.
• Brush eight deep muffin holes generously with the softened butter and dust each one with caster sugar, tipping out the excess.

Steps

1. Pour the warm water into the flour and mix with your hand until no dry powder remains and you have a shaggy, sticky dough.
2. Tip the dough onto an unfloured counter and knead it for eight minutes, until it turns smooth and springs back slowly when pressed.
3. Return the dough to the bowl, cover it, and leave it somewhere warm for one hour until it has roughly doubled.
4. Press the risen dough flat, wrap it, and chill it in the fridge for thirty minutes so it firms up.
5. Put the block of butter between two sheets of baking paper and beat it with a rolling pin into a flat square about 15cm across.
6. Roll the chilled dough into a rectangle about 30cm by 20cm on a lightly floured counter.
7. Lay the butter square in the centre of the dough and fold the two short ends over it so they meet in the middle and fully enclose the butter.
8. Roll the parcel out to a long rectangle about 50cm by 20cm, keeping the edges as straight as you can.
9. Scatter 70g of the caster sugar evenly over the whole surface of the dough.
10. Fold the dough in three like a business letter, pressing gently to seal the sugar inside.
11. Chill the folded dough in the fridge for twenty minutes so the butter stays firm.
12. Roll the dough out to the same long rectangle again, scatter over another 70g of sugar, and fold it in three.
13. Chill the dough for another twenty minutes.
14. Roll and fold once more with the last 60g of sugar, then chill for a final twenty minutes.
15. Roll the dough out to a square roughly 40cm across and about 1cm thick.
16. Cut the square into eight equal pieces with a sharp knife, pressing straight down rather than dragging.
17. Fold the four corners of each piece into its centre and press them down firmly so they hold.
18. Drop each parcel into a prepared muffin hole with the folded side facing up.
19. Cover the tin loosely and leave it in a warm spot for forty-five minutes, until the dough looks puffed and relaxed.
20. Heat the oven to 200C fan-off, or 180C fan.
21. Bake the pastries for thirty to thirty-five minutes, until they are deep amber and the sugar is bubbling hard around the edges.
22. Lift each pastry out of its hole immediately with a knife tip and set it on a wire rack, or the caramel will glue it in as it cools.
23. Leave them to cool for at least fifteen minutes before eating, as the caramel is fiercely hot.