Paul Hollywood's Kouign Amann

This week I have decided to bake Paul Hollywood's technical challenge of Kouign Amann. Like the contestants this was a bake that I was not familiar with. I had never heard of it or even seen one. However I did like the look of them! Thankfully the hubby recently bought me The Great British Bake Off Big Book of Baking and it contained the recipe! I was pleased I wasn't going into this one blind!

If you do not have the book you can find the recipe here.

This is how I got on...

Paul Hollywood's Kouign Amann

Ingredients

300g strong white flour
5g fast action yeast
5g salt
200g warm water
25g butter, melted
250g block of unsalted butter
100g caster sugar

Method

1 - Place the flour in a bowl with the yeast on one side and the salt on the other

2 - Pour over the water and melted butter and mix (this can either be done by hand or by machine)

3 - If doing by hand gather the ingredients together until you have a rough dough and have collected all of the flour

4 - Remove from the bowl and start to knead, this starts as a sticky dough and will need a lot of stretching to build up the gluten

5 - After kneading for about 10 minutes you will have a smooth dough, place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave to prove for about an hour

6 - Once the dough has doubled in size take the block of butter and roll it out into a square that is roughly 18cms x18cms then place in the fridge to keep cool

7 - Place the dough on a lightly floured work top and roll out into a square that is about 20cms x 20cms

8  - Place the butter square on top of the dough and fold over the corner to the centre so that the butter is encased in the dough

9 - Roll out into a rectangle and fold the bottom third up and the top third down, wrap in cling film and return to the fridge for half an hour

10 - Repeat the process two more times

11 - Remove the dough from the fridge and roll out into a rectangle, sprinkle over the caster sugar leaving a little for dusting

12 - Fold up the bottom third and fold the top third down, roll out into a rectangle

13 - Sprinkle over the remaining sugar

14 - Cut the dough into 3 even strips

15 - Divide the 3 strips into 4 so you have 12 mini squares

16 - Take each square and gather the corners into the centre and place in a well greased muffin tin

17 - Pre heat the oven to 200C (the recipe says 220C but I found this to be too hot so reduced the heat)

18 - Once the Kouign Amann's have puffed up place in the centre of the pre heated oven for 30 minutes, check them every 10 minutes as the tops brown very quickly due to the sugar. When the tops are brown enough cover with foil to prevent burning

19 - Once baked remove from the oven and allow to cool for a couple of minutes in the tray as the sugar is extremely hot, do not leave in for more than a couple of minutes are the sugar will stick them to the tray!

20 - Leave to cool on a cooling rack

These delicious little pastries are perfect when eaten fresh and have been a huge success in our house. I will definitely be making them again and may even add some fruit with the sugar next time!

Enjoy x

As you can see my little helpers couldn't resist tucking in once I'd taken my pictures!

As always I am joining in with the Great Bloggers Bake Off 2014 hosted by the lovely Jenny at Mummy Mishaps

I am also sharing with the lovely Supergolden Bakes My Great #GBBO Bake Along