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New ZealandFlavors · Douarnenez
Breton cake made from bread dough folded several times with salted butter and sugar, which caramelizes in the oven. The name means butter cake in Breton, and the creation is attributed to a baker from Douarnenez, around 1860.
Traditional sweet from Douarnenez, Bretanha
Also known as: kouign amann
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Kouign-amann — Douarnenez, France
The kouign-amann starts with a bread dough. Salted butter and sugar in similar amounts are spread over it, and the dough is folded and rolled several times, like a puff pastry. In the oven, the butter and sugar caramelize: the cake comes out with a crisp, shiny crust and a soft, moist, layered interior.
The name comes from Breton: kouign means cake and amann means butter. The creation is attributed to Yves-René Scordia, a baker from Douarnenez, around 1860. The tourism story from Brittany says that on a very busy day he combined sugar and butter with a bread dough to serve customers. Another hypothesis links the cake to a Scandinavian sweet, because of Douarnenez’s port trade with northern Europe.
The result depends on the quality of the dough, the temperature and the resting time, which makes kouign-amann a difficult pastry to make. There are versions with apple or with buckwheat flour.
Sold in bakeries throughout Brittany, in large sizes to share or in small individual portions, it remains associated with Douarnenez, where bakers keep the recipe.
Douarnenez , Bretanha
The creation of the cake is attributed to a baker from Douarnenez, around 1860.
Bread dough (flour, water, sourdough starter or yeast, salt); salted butter; sugar.
Warm or at room temperature, in slices or as an individual portion, for a snack or with coffee. It is best on the day it is baked.
All year round, for snack and breakfast.
Your questions
Butter cake, in Breton: kouign is cake and amann is butter.
The creation is attributed to Yves-René Scordia, a baker from Douarnenez, around 1860.
Both are folded doughs with butter, but the kouign-amann starts from a bread dough, uses a lot of sugar and caramelizes in the oven; the croissant does not include sugar in the lamination.
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