Kouign-amann — Douarnenez, France

Kouign-amann is a laminated bread dough enriched with layers of salted butter and sugar, baked until the sugar and butter escape the folds and caramelize around the cake. It is tied to Douarnenez, where it is reported to have first been made around 1860, at a bakery run by Yves-René Scordia, according to local accounts — out of a shortage of flour and a surplus of butter, or by accident, depending on who tells it. The town treats the cake as its own, a claim that other parts of Brittany contest. A simple bread dough — flour, yeast, water, salt — is left to rise, then rolled out and folded around a slab of cold salted butter with sugar scattered between the folds, in the manner of puff pastry but handled more roughly. Three folds and turns are given, each followed by a short rest in the cold, so the layers hold without the butter fully melting into the dough. The folded dough is shaped into a round, set into a buttered, sugared tin, given a last rise, and baked until deeply caramelized. The sugar and butter that escape from the layers form a crisp, almost burnished underside, while the inside stays flaky and soft; the cake is meant to be eaten warm, the same day it is baked, before the crust softens.