Kouign aman - sugar help needed!
My kouign Amann is now proofing and waiting to be bake. For the most part, it has been a pretty straight forward process, the lamination was much easier than croissant due to the amount of butter in the dough.
However what I couldn't wrap my head (hands?) around was the sugar. I recalculated the recipe for two sticks of butter. And get this, the sugar translated to 200grams- 200!(just measuring it out made my jaws drop) . I could not get even half of that in the last tri-fold. The last roll out was also a pain due to the excess sugar separating the dough.
In the end I gave up and settled for about 100grams of sugar instead.
was I just supposed to pour all that sugar in there???
Edit: Sorry forgot to state that I'm usung this recipe here:
http://www.chefeddy.com/2011/02/kouing-aman/
Are you sure it was supposed to be 200 grams per tri fold? Could it have been 200 grams spread out between the folds? 200 grams is how much i used for each fold when I was making it at work with nearly 4 pounds of butter going into the lamination. I doubt you are making the size of dough I was making...
200 grams total. But even then it's a lot. I've done the math 3-4 times just to be sure, but it comes out the same...
The sugar goes in before the last roll out. So this recipes's lost me...
Although wikipedia does say sugar and butter should be equal weight for a true kouign amann, I just don't see a way to get all that in.
I think your calculation of 200g was right, given that an (American) stick of butter weighs approx. 110g.
An issue here is scaling by the tourage butter weight - this may not be the best thing to scale the dough by. It may be that you simply had too little dough to hold that much butter and sugar.
For that scaling, I think you'd probably have started with 370g of flour in the dough.. For a comparison, my typical croissant dough uses 500g of flour and I then use 250g of butter for the folding. (I typically use half butter to flour although I've seen recipes that use slightly more - as this one does. But based on my usual way, I'd be looking to make the dough with about 440g of flour.
Recipes like this are open for experimentation - especially when you're simply covering the layers in sugar and a little more or less isn't really going to make much difference and I suspect that Breton bakeries who make this simply have a big bowl of sugar and just pick up a handful or 2 to cover the layers with when they make them.
How did they turn out? Bet they were still tasty!
-Gordon
They sure were tasty! I thoroughly underestmated the power of caramalization however, and there was quite a sugnificant portion of burning going on. Good thing it's a pastry and the burnt areas flaked off quite easily. note to self to readjust the bake time next time from 45 minutes to about 30 :(
my friend brought me a kouign amann from dominique ansels and it was much sweeter. So the proportion of sugar probably is correct, I just need to devise a way of getting it all in.
I make myself feel better by telling myself that my Kouign Amanns are healthier!
..I don't do KA very often compared to other pastries, but I reckon you're about 80% overweight. Could it be a typo (the curse of internet recipes)? Of course, as Gordon says, it all depends upon total weight anyway, so, in the formula I use, this much sugar would require about 375g of unsalted butter, 525g of flour etc... making about twenty KA.
And, yes, no-one enjoys doing that final turn with all that sugar. Horrible experience. But still better than incorporating it earlier which results in a syrupy mess.
Btw, don't force the sugar into the laminate. Be as gentle as you can with it. Pressing it in punctures the laminate and you get a less pleasing final product. Apologies if this is grandmother-sucks-egg time, but it's an important tip missing from many KA recipes.
whew, I think I wouldnt do kouign amann again for a very long time. burnt sugar is no fun!
Funny, the end product wasnt quite as sweet as dominique ansel's KA - which I didnt like anyway, the crumb was a but too separated and doughy for me.
Thanks for the tip on the sugar, I did realize on the final roll out that the sugar broke through the edges... What do you think about powdered sugar instead of granulated? Would that possibly work?
Strange you should say that about adding all the sugar at once. I added the sugar between each of the folds (I believe it is Brian Wood's formula we followed). Didn't have any issue with a syrupy mess. Fold with sugar and rested in the freezer for 30 minutes between folds without issue...You do have to leave a slight border so the sugar doesn't leak out but it's a small border and never had any issue with it.Of course I was doing this with a professional sheeter and not by hand...
I'm thinking of trying that next, I realized that the sugar needs some time to dissolve before I can roll it out without the granules breaking through. professional sheeter....that's a far away dream!
Yeah, more like nightmare..I was making 1400 croissant, 400 chocolate croissant, 200 cheese croissant, 1800 danish, 240 KA pieces a week :) oh, and 10 sheets of puff dough...and some other things that went through the sheeter...not as much of a dream. I'm a bread guy at heart.
wow that is impressive, l'm struggling to make something every other day when you're churning out pastries in the thousands. I miss making bread, the whole set it and forget it thing is pretty much non existant when there's dough waiting to be hand laminated. But, ugh pastries are just so tasty!
I lied about the whole thing on never going to make KA again - I've made two more batches. But I'm not happy with the bottoms, they're not crispy like the tops :/
from now it's to just keep trying until I get the texture I want - crispy caramelized surface without burning the sugar and a wonderfully layered crumb... lots of work for me, but atleast my colleagues are well fed and content!
Hey, to have the dedication to do the laminating by hand is great. I moved on from that job and am back to baking bread so I'm a happy camper...I can do lamination but it's just not really what I want to be doing...
The recipe in Gayle Ortiz's The Village Baker's Wife calls for 3-1/2 cups bread flour and 12 oz butter in the dough. After initial lamination, 1-3/4 cups sugar total (2/3 cup on board under the first rollout, sprinkle some on top, a 3-fold turn and chill, then 2/3 cup on the board and re-roll, sprinkle a little more on top. Butter and sugar the molds.
I haven't made them yet, but have enjoyed them many times at Gayle's in Capitola CA and love trying recipes in the Ortiz's books. I found gently used copies online.