Kouign Amann - A Traditional Buttery Dessert of Breton

In Brittany, cakes and biscuits are known for their star ingredient, butter and ranking right up the top of Breton favourites is the Kouign Amann. Invented in Douarnenez around 1865 according to Bretagne Tourisme, this speciality cake is made with a few simple ingredients and is essentially a bread dough to which you add sugar and salted butter, and then fold repeatedly like making puff pastry. The quality of the salted butter and the resting time of the dough are both essential to the success of baking this cake. During baking, the butter-sugar mixture melts, and gives the cake a crusty caramelised outside and a soft layered inside. 

This regional speciality that is sold in boulangeries all over Brittany, even has its own association, the Véritable kouigan amann de Douarnenez Association. The Association is made up of bakers and pastry chefs who promote the Kouign Amann.