(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Today on
"America's Test Kitchen," Lan and Bridget bake Breton kouign amann, Adam reveals his top pick for bannetons, and Elle bakes Julia perfect madeleines. It's all coming up right here
on "America's Test Kitchen." (upbeat music) (lively music) - Buttery, sweet, crisp, flaky, rich, all words that I would use
to describe kouign amann, which is the decadent pastry from the French region of Brittany. Now it is a decadent dessert, and the name actually means
butter cake in Breton, which is the Celtic language
that's spoken in the area. Now you don't have to book
your flight just yet though because Lan's here and she's gonna show us a fantastic version that
we can make at home. - Bridget, I just love this pastry. You've described it with
some of my favorite words, and I just can't wait to get started. - Alright. - We're gonna start by
making a lean dough. It's got just a handful of
ingredients and it's really easy. - Okay.
- I'm using 11 1/4 ounces, that's 2 1/4 cups if
you don't have a scale, of all-purpose flour, and I've just got it
in my stand mixer bowl. I'm adding 3/4 of a teaspoon of table salt and 1/2 a teaspoon of instant yeast. Just gonna stir that together. And I've got 1 cup of
room temperature water. That's it. - That's it.
- Yeah, real simple. I am stirring this up rather than sticking this
on the machine right away. So I'll put this on the stand mixer, and I'm gonna mix it
on low for one minute, and I'm looking for
everything to come together and for all of that dry
flour to get worked in. - [Bridget] Great. - Now that the dough has come together, I'm gonna turn this up to medium low, and we'll let that run until the dough becomes
smooth and elastic. That usually takes about five minutes. (mixer whirring) Bridget, this looks great. It's been five minutes. That dough has come together nicely. Let's get it out of the bowl. This is looking like it's
gonna stick to that counter, so I'm gonna throw a little flour down. We're gonna round this out and kinda squish it into
about a 5 by 5 square. This looks great. I've
got a greased plate here. I'm just gonna transfer it to the plate. Throw some plastic wrap on top. Now that this is covered, I'm going to let it rest in the fridge, and it can sit there for
one hour or up to 24 hours. Alright, Bridget, now that
the dough is in the fridge, let's move on to the butter. - Alright. - We're gonna shape our
butter into a packet with the help of this
little parchment sheet. I've folded it into a
6 by 9 inch rectangle. I'm just gonna open it up. - [Bridget] Okay. You do have instructions for how to fold that on our website. - We do, yes. I've got my stand mixer bowl from earlier. I'm adding 16 tablespoons
of salted butter. This is 1/2 a teaspoon of table salt. It tempers that sweetness a little bit, makes it more interesting. Here we're kind of moving away from what the traditional method is. You'll see why in a little bit. - Okay. - I'm gonna add our sugar
directly to the butter. This is 3/4 of a cup of sugar. For now, let's get this together. I'm gonna mix this on
low for about a minute. I'm just looking for
everything to be well combined. (mixer whirring) This looks great. Now I'm gonna transfer all
of this to our little packet. So let's smoosh this down
a little bit, fold it over. I'm just gonna press this down 'til it's about 1/2 inch thick. That looks pretty good. Now we'll refold this. (paper rustling) - And then you send it in a letter to me. - (chuckles) I mean, the post
office will deliver anything if I put a stamp on it, right? (Bridget chuckling)
(paper rustling) Great. Just wanna make sure
it's nice and rectangular. And I'll use a rolling pin to smooth the butter into the corners and make a nice flat butter packet. This is looking nice and
smooth, nice and squared off. I'm gonna get this into the fridge as well so it can firm up, and that's
gonna take about 45 minutes. But you can also do this ahead and have it in the fridge up to 24 hours. Bridget, it's time to get that butter and lean dough together. I've got a 9-inch round here, and I've greased it well both
on the bottom and the sides. And the grease isn't there
to facilitate release. It's actually there to hold
our parchment in place. - Okay. - [Lan] And it's the parchment
that's gonna help us get this pastry out of the pan. I'm gonna press this into
the bottom of the pan, and then I'm gonna pleat it so that the bits that are sticking up are stuck to the sides. - [Bridget] Okay, great. - [Lan] This looks great.
Parchment's not in the way. That's all I'm looking for.
- Okay, great. - So let's move this to the side. Now I have had this butter on the counter so it can warm up
slightly from fridge temp. And this I've actually just
removed from the freezer. I want them to have the same malleability so that when I press them with the pin, they move in the same way. It helps them come together better. - Okay. - And it's just 10 minutes in
the freezer, really simple. Get rid of this plastic. Flour my counter. And I'm not worried about
working too much flour into this. Little bit for the top. And I'm gonna roll this out
until it measures 18 by 6 1/2, keeping the short side parallel to me. - [Bridget] Okay. - Great.
- Lovely. - Now, butter packet. This is going right in this center. Peel this off.
(paper rustling) - [Bridget] Mm! - [Lan] Now we'll just fold
this over to encase our butter. If it springs back or you missed the mark and it's a little short, it's okay to give it a little stretch. That looks pretty good. And I'll just pinch these seams closed across the center and down the sides. While I'm doing this, I wanna make sure that I don't have a ton of air in there. Air is gonna puff when we bake
this, and we don't want that. We want nice compact, flaky layers. - Right, you wanna control the puff. - Yes, making sure that my
pastry is nicely floured on the bottom so it doesn't stick. Now I need to roll this out
until it hits 21 inches by 7. A little bit wider than 7's okay. The butter's still kind of firm, it's not gonna roll too easily. A nice way to help is pressing gently working my way down the pastry. It thins out the butter and makes it a little bit easier to roll. So I'll go down and then across. Now the traditional method for this pastry is to just scatter sugar over that butter. But sugar's coarse and
it can tear the dough. It also pulls water out of the dough, which turns into a syrup
and that oozes out the side and makes a hot mess. And we do not want that. We're a little bit wider
than 7, but that's okay. Now before I fold this over, I'm gonna brush off any
extra flour from the top. The flour on the top will
keep these layers separate. And again, we want those
layers to be nice and tight so that they can absorb all that butter instead of puffing away from it compact. Yes, so I'll fold the
top over, quick brush. And this is just a simple trifold. Here we go. We're rolling it to 21 by 7. We're gonna do two trifolds in total. That's enough to create
plenty of layers for this. I'm gonna use that pressing
motion one more time. So this looks great. Brush, fold. Okay, that is it for our folds. - [Bridget] Lovely. - [Lan] Next we have to
make this into a round. - Oh, spoke too soon. (Lan and Bridget chuckling) - I'm gonna roll this
into an 11-inch square. I just wanna flatten those
layers together a little bit, set myself up for making that round. This is kind of my favorite part of this. We're gonna take the corners and we're gonna fold them into the center. You don't have to be
super precise about this. And this gets us close to our round. Now the best part, we're
just gonna squish it. - Oh, okay.
- Right. So I'm gonna come in from the sides and kind of just mush
it in, mush it this way. And now we'll flip it over. - Come on.
- Great. A little bit more flour. Tuck the corners, and I'm
gonna give it a little nudge. Right, now I'm gonna
roll it out one last time into a 9 1/2-inch round, and then we'll get it in the pan. - [Bridget] Okay, great. - That's pretty close. So just pick it up, slide it in place. - [Bridget] Lovely. - [Lan] Here we go. Now that it's in the pan, just
one last bit before we bake. - Okay. - I've got a tablespoon of milk here. I'm just gonna brush it onto this pastry. This milk is just gonna
help the pastry bake up a little bit more golden. - [Bridget] Mm! - And we'll score a
decorative pattern in here. You can kind of put as many
or as few as you want in here. - [Bridget] Gorgeous. - Last step, I've got a
tablespoon of sugar right on top, and it's just gonna add
a nice little crunch. Finally, I'm actually
gonna dock this pastry. I'm gonna create little vents all the way down to the bottom. I'm putting in about four of them, and it's gonna allow air
that is inevitably trapped between those layers to escape. It'll help the pastry layers stay flat and soak up all the
butter that's in there. - Because we want pastry to
soak up butter and sugar. - Always.
- Yes. - This is gonna go on the middle
rack of a 375 degree oven. It'll bake until it's deep golden brown. That takes 50 minutes, maybe an hour. How great does this look? - Mm! Gorgeous. - Oh, as great as this looks, it needs a little bit of time in the pan. That pastry has to cool a little bit. It'll firm up. It's really
soft right now, actually. - Okay, so how long? - 10 minutes. - That's not too bad. 10 minutes are up, Lan. (Bridget and Lan chuckling) - Set a timer, I see. So I'm gonna invert it onto a plate. (pastry plopping) Heard it.
- You could hear the drop. - Yeah, always a good sign. (paper rustling) - And I shall lick the parchment. - Right. The reveal. - [Bridget] Mm! - Delish. you can see it still needs
a little bit of setting up. - Gorgeous. The smell of the caramelized
butter is outrageous right now. - It's so good. Now I'm gonna be serving it on this board, and it can go right on our serving board. Just flip it over. - Lovely. (chuckles) - And you know how you talked about crisp? - [Bridget] Yes. - We gotta wait 30 minutes for crisp. - I will wait for crisp. (pastry cracking) Listen to that. - [Lan] Now this is
supposed to serve 8 to 10, but I cut us bigger pieces. - 8 to 10? (laughs)
- I know, right? - [Bridget] That's so
funny. Oh my goodness. Good grief. I just wanna take a moment and marvel at that striation in there. It's just beautiful. All those layers in there held together with butter and sugar, creating the most ultimate
of syrups in the world. - [Lan] Oh, the best. They're brilliant. They're
absolutely brilliant. - Mm! (chuckles) I love everything about this. The texture is unmistakable. You get that hearty wheat flavor, but it's so delicate at the same time. - There are little pockets of water where it gets bound with the sugar and there's like a jelly-ish syrup. It's delicious. - [Bridget] This is the
ultimate of French pastry. - [Lan] You know what's scary? I can polish off a half
of this no problem. And I have. - You have?
- Yeah. - Well, before I polish
off the rest of this, I got a little business to do. So thank you, Lan, for
making this beautiful pastry. You're gonna wanna make this, and it starts with beating
sugar directly into the butter before rolling it in a parchment envelope. Roll out the dough just enough so it can encase the butter block. And dock the pastry to
prevent spots of dry dough or too much lift. From "America's Test Kitchen"
and the coast of Brittany, Breton kouign amann. Kouign yum-ann. Yum.
- Yeah. - Are you ready to take your
cooking to the next level? Introducing "The Complete
America's Test Kitchen "TV Show Cookbook" featuring every recipe from every episode of
"America's Test Kitchen." That's thousands of recipes. That texture's unbelievable. Reviews. - Gadgets you didn't know you needed. - [Bridget] And tips. - Yes, there's some terrible choices, but there are also some amazing choices. (Julia and Jack laughing) - We've spilled all of our secrets and included our insider
notes alongside each recipe. - [Julia] Plus, there's
a handy shopping guide so you know exactly what to
grab when you're at the store. - And, of course, it
makes an excellent gift. Get your copy today at
AmericasTestKitchen.com. (upbeat music) Sometimes at French bakeries
or bistros or boulangeries, you'll find these
beautiful boules of bread that were baked, shaped, and they feature these gorgeous
designs on the outside. Like, say, wheat sheafs. And they were formed in
what's called a banneton. And Adam's here. He's gonna tell us why
we should use bannetons and what they do. - It is all about gluten
relaxation, Bridget. When you use a banneton, you have shaped your dough one last time before you're getting ready to bake and it's proofing that last rest period. What happens then is the
gluten is gonna relax and the bread can spread a little bit, get a little bit sloppy. If you put it in a banneton, that will help it retain its shape. You can use a banneton either
with or without a liner. If you use it without a liner, what you get is the
imprint of the banneton on the crust of the loaf like that. So it's a super easy way to decorate. If you use it with a liner,
it gives you the chance to do more of your own decorative scoring. You don't have the pattern
of the material on there so that you can score it any way you want and get any kind of decoration you want. We chose this lineup of
five different bannetons in different materials. They come in all kinds of
different shapes and sizes. We chose 9-inch round bannetons, and that's good for a loaf
that weighs up to a kilo or 2.2 pounds. - [Bridget] Okay. - They come in a variety of materials. If they had a liner, great. If they didn't but it
was available separately, we bought it separately. So the price range was 16 to $36. And we tested these with
at least five loaves at different levels of hydration, low hydration, medium, and high hydration, because they're gonna stick differently. And we were looking for the pattern and we were looking for release. We don't want these loaves
to stick in there that well. Different materials all had pros and cons. The one in front of you, that's plastic. The plastic stuck like crazy. All but the lowest hydration doughs just clung onto that plastic. So you could use a liner, but then you don't get the
nice pattern of the plastic, so you have fewer options for decoration. - Might as well stick with
a colander at that point. - Exactly. And a colander and that
are both easy to clean 'cause you can just chuck
'em into the dishwasher. These other ones are natural material, so you have to clean them
a little more carefully. - Right.
- The second one in front of you, that's wicker. That one has the liner attached to it. - You can see the stitching. - Yeah, you have no choice
but to use the liner here. You know, if you wanna score
your own loaf, that's great. If you wanna pick up the
pattern of the wicker, not so great. - [Bridget] I see. - This one is made of wood pulp, and this one really
released doughs beautifully. The wood pulp absorbs a little
bit of the surface moisture from the crust, so it released well. Of course we seasoned
them with a flour mixture, rice flour and wheat flour. But these are generally
used without a liner. So it's great, if you want the
pattern from the wood pulp, you're good to go. If you wanna use a liner and
do your own scoring, not great. These two are both made from rattan, which is sometimes called cane. Very common material
to use for a banneton. You can use it either without
a liner or with the liner. We bought the liner. The first couple of dough stuck
in these without the liner, but once it picked up that seasoning from the rice and wheat flour mix, the sticking was not really a problem. And because you can use it either way, you have a lot of decoration options. So this was our favorite one. This is the Breadtopia
round bread proofing basket, For the liner and the banneton, $19. They come as a set, worked really well. They're also available in
different shapes and sizes. - Very exciting. Thanks, Adam. Well, if you want to
take your bread baking to the next level, why
not give a banneton a try? Our winner is the Breadtopia round bread proofing basket and liner. The set is $19. At "America's Test Kitchen," recipe development is serious business. - Head over to AmericasTestKitchen.com and unlock 14,000 expert developed recipes and 8,000 unbiased product reviews all rigorously tested by our team. - Access every episode of every season of your favorite cooking shows. That's 38 seasons of inspiration. - And with the ATK members app, you'll have 30 years of
expertise at your fingertips anywhere, anytime. Join us and become a smarter cook. - Start your free
all-access trial membership at AmericasTestKitchen.com today. (lively music) (cheerful music) - A madeleine is a small shell-shaped cake from the Lorraine region of France, and they're delicious
alongside a cup of coffee, especially when they're homemade, which is what Elle's gonna do today. - That's right. And one of the most
distinctive characteristics of this madeleine cookie
is its shape, right? And we achieve that by
using a madeleine tin. It's very popular. You can
buy it at any cake shop. But one of the most challenging
parts of this recipe is getting the madeleines out of the pan. - Yes. - Well, we're not gonna
have that happen today. I'm gonna start by greasing
this pan thoroughly. (spray can whooshing) Alright, I think we have them all. Now we can move into making
our madeleine batter. And this comes together really quickly, so you really need to have all of your mise en place in place. You gotta have everything you need right there and ready to go. - Okey doke.
- Okay? So we're starting with 1 cup of cake flour and we have 1/4 teaspoon of salt. I'm gonna mix it well into the flour and just set that aside. So I have my stand mixer here
with our paddle attachment. To that I'm gonna add two
whole eggs and one egg yolk. - [Julia] Okay. - [Elle] I'm going to
put this on medium high and let it mix until it's frothy. That might take about five minutes. - Okay.
Okay. - Alright, it's been five minutes. This looks pretty foamy. I'm really happy with it. I'm gonna add 1/2 a cup of sugar and a tablespoon of vanilla extract. And then I'm gonna whip it
for another five minutes, same speed. (mixer whirring) - [Julia] Well, that
certainly changed color, huh? - Yeah, it did, color,
texture, everything. Just as thick as we want
it to be, nice and foamy. I'm just going to gently
fold in our cake flour. And again, that's 1 cup of cake flour. Now I'm gonna add 10
tablespoons of unsalted butter and it's been melted and cooled. Alright, make sure that
you are getting the sides of your bowl to get all
the batter incorporated. That looks great, and
it smells good already. - It does.
- Yeah. It's time to get it
into the madeleine pan. Alright, so this is a bit of a process. So you're gonna start first with a full tablespoon of batter. I'm gonna use an offset
spatula to level it off. - [Julia] That's right,
'cause they're so little, you gotta make sure they
bake at the same rate. - Yes, so I'm also using
just a regular kitchen spoon for scraping the batter. Now to fill the mold, you
need 1 1/2 tablespoons, so I just take my tablespoon in there. I look at it, I make sure it's about half, and I add it to the mold. - [Julia] Alright, so
a tablespoon and a half of batter per mold. - [Elle] Per mold. Okay, so I'm just gonna
finish filling these molds for our little cakes. - [Julia] Great. - Alright, that's the last one. - Nicely done.
- And thank you very much. And these are ready to go into the oven, but if you notice we still
have half the batter left, and we are going to repeat
this process all over again with the second half of the batter. This is gonna go into
the oven, 375 degrees. I set the oven rack in
the middle position. And it only takes 10 minutes to cook, but in five minutes I'm gonna rotate it and then we're ready to go. - Hey there, fellow fans of cooking. Wanna stay in the know? - [Julia] Visit
AmericasTestKitchen.com and sign up for our free "Notes from the
Test Kitchen" email newsletter. - Get exclusive tips, seasonal
recipes, product reviews, and more delivered straight to your inbox. - [Julia] Sign up for free
at AmericasTestKitchen.com. - Ooh, these look amazing. There we go. Wow. (door clacking) - [Julia] You can tell they must be good because you started to
sing a little bit there. - Oh yeah.
(Julia chuckles) Wow, now these look amazing, but we still have to test it for doneness. And so I do that by just using
my finger and pressing down. And if it springs back,
it's probably ready. - It smells delicious. - It smells so good. And we got that beautiful golden edge that madeleines are very much known for. So now they just need to
cool for about 10 minutes in the tin on the cooling rack. Okay, so it's been 10 minutes and the madeleines have
cooled on the rack. This is where I need you
to cross your fingers, your eyes, and your toes
that they pop out easily. Look at that.
- Look at that. - Beautiful.
- Nothing but net. - Oh my gosh.
- Oh yes. - [Elle] I love it so much. - [Julia] There's a little
hump on the backside that makes them not lay flat. That is a classic shape. - These are looking great. I'm just grateful that
they're popping out so easily. That means we oiled our
tin properly, right? Alright, now that those are
done, we're going to clean up, we're gonna regrease our baking sheet and do the same thing with
the second batch of dough. - Sounds good.
- Great. Look at these perfect,
gorgeous madeleines. - What are you gonna eat? (laughs) - [Elle] I'll try and get one. - [Julia] They're beautiful, Elle. - [Elle] Thank you very much. And I'm gonna finish them off with a little confectioner sugar. - [Julia] Oh, I love that. - [Elle] For looks. It feels so traditional,
so classic, so French. - [Julia] So French. - [Elle] I'm just gonna just take two, so. (Julia laughs) They're perfectly paired with our coffee. - Mm-hmm. Alright.
- Let's dig in. - Uh-huh. Mm! Mm-hmm. - I live for that crunchy edge. (Julia chuckles) I'm gonna dip in my coffee. - Mm! They're light. They're tender. Mm! So good with coffee. They're just so much better when you make them from scratch yourself. - Agreed.
- And it's pretty easy. - Yeah, it's very easy. It's very easy. I think people will be surprised. If I could eat these every day- - [Julia] We'd be in trouble. - [Elle] We'd be in trouble. I don't know how good it is that they're so easy to make at home. - Elle, this is perfect. Thank you. - Well, it's my pleasure. Merci beaucoup. - (laughs) So there you have it. If you wanna make madeleines at home, start by greasing the
madeleine mold thoroughly, use cake flour in the batter, and let the cakes cool in the tins for 10 minutes before removing. From "America's Test Kitchen," a wonderful recipe for madeleines. You can get this recipe and all
the recipes from this season along with select episodes
and our product reviews at our website,
AmericasTestKitchen.com/TV. I'm already on number two. - Dunking cookies. (Julia chuckles) - We hope you enjoyed this video as much as we enjoyed making it. - Don't forget to hit that Like button and subscribe to our channel. - And if you're ready to take your cooking to the next level, head over
to AmericasTestKitchen.com and get a free all-access
trial membership. - While you're there, you can sign up for our
free email newsletters and download our app. - [Julia] With unlimited
access to over 14,000 of our "Test Kitchen" recipes
and 8,000 product reviews, you'll have everything you
need to cook and learn. - So I ask, what are you waiting for? - Let's make something great together.
