Kouign-Amann Butter Cakes from Brittany, France at Trader Joe’s in Marina, California by Ruth Paget
This past weekend, my family did not eat chocolate croissants on Saturday like usual. Instead, my husband Laurent, daughter Florence Paget, and I ate individual, warm, butter cakes from Brittany located in northwestern France called kouign-amann (pronounced koonya mon) that we bought at Trader Joe’s in Marina, California.
These easy to eat Celtic cakes with a short list of ingredients require time, technique, and patience to make which is probably why Trader Joe’s stepped in to make them.
I looked through a small recipe book that I bought in France called Les Meilleures Recettes Bretonnes (The Best Breton Recipes) by Brigitte and Jean-Pierre Perrin-Chattard for a recipe. These delicious cakes are made with:
-flour
-salted butter
-powdered sugar
-yeast
-salt
-egg yolk
-water
To make the cake, you make a dough that rises once and then two more times after being turned over itself and turned like croissant dough, but on a thicker and larger scale.
If you have patience, you can save money making these treats.
However, the Trader Joe’s version is much fancier. The cakes come in individual ridged baking papers that can go in the oven for heating. The kouign-amann cales look elegant with mugs of coffee, orange juice, and drinkable yogurt.
For a weekend treat, the kouign-amann butter cakes from Brittany, France at Trader Joe’s in Marina, France might be a nice break from croissants for you.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
