It must have been boredom, or the urge to tackle one last challenging thing before the year ends, or maybe I was feeling a bit festive, or all the above, but I decided to go for the granddaddy, the big kahuna, the BBEG of layered doughs – puff pastry, in the form of the sugar and butter bomb that is known as Kouign-Amann.
It starts out innocently enough, mix the dough, make sure the gluten develops well so it can stretch, shape the butter into a square block, be amazed and alarmed at the amount of butter. Let the dough rise, chill the butter. For now they go their separate ways. It’s only once you set up those two to meet that the intricate dance of dough rolling starts. You see, if the butter is too hard and too cold you can’t roll it and tear the dough, if it’s too soft it will melt and seep together. The temperature has to be just right. I gave it my best, threw it into the oven and watched it rise. Quite literally, as the view straight into the oven completely took my attention for 15 minutes straight as I gazed at the bubbling dough. Once done, pull quickly from the mold before the caramel hardens, let it cool for as long as your patience allows and dig in. As you can see, I got impatient with chilling the dough, so things got a bit melty, leading to less distinct layers, but the result is still quite phenomenal. The crunchy, caramel-y crust on the outside is an absolute treat. But don’t eat those thingies if you plan to be active afterwards.
And so ends the year, a bit sweet, a bit salty, a bit messy, twisting and turning like dough in a mold (hm, that analogy is kinda clunky). Let’s see what the new year brings, hopefully a bevy of new delights, culinary or otherwise.