morning buns

I recently became obsessed with making things with homemade laminated dough - croissants, pain au chocolate, and kouign amann to name a few. They all basically start with the same dough - a yeasted dough that is wrapped around pounded or flattened butter, and rolled and turned several times to make layers in the dough. Then you can turn the dough into various things! Plain with egg wash for croissants, filled with dark chocolate for decadent pain au chocolate, and turned with lots of sugar for a caramelized sugar kouign amann. Another type of pastry you can make is morning buns!

To make the morning buns, you roll out your laminated dough into a large rectangle, and cover it with a mixture of sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon (and some recipes call for grated orange zest, but I skipped that ingredient). For reference, I used this recipe by Martha Stewart for the dough, and this recipe at Cannella Vita for the filling and baking directions.

After sprinkling an even layer of filling, carefully roll the dough into a long log.

And then carefully cut 2-inch segments with a sharp knife. (You should end up with 12 segments).

Then place the segments in a buttered cupcake or muffin pan, cover with plastic wrap, and let them rise.

I was supposed to let them rise for an hour, then cover with plastic wrap and let them rest in the fridge overnight before baking them, but I was impatient and baked them after the first hour! As a result, my morning buns were not as puffy and they should have been.

But I didn't mind because I got to eat them sooner ;) and they still tasted great! Enjoy!

pain au chocolate

During my recent obsession with making pastries with laminated dough (such as kouign amann and croissants), I also experimented with making pain au chocolate - basically a croissant filled with dark chocolate.

For the recipe, I used this one by Martha Stewart. The process was the same as making the croissant dough, but instead of cutting the dough into triangle and rolling them into crescent shapes, I cut the dough into long rectangular strips, added a couple tablespoons of chopped dark chocolate at one end, and then rolled them up into little logs.

See the chocolate peeking out?

Then after egg wash and baking, out emerged delicious buttery pastries filled with melted chocolate! While I still need to work on my croissant dough, as the pastries are still not as puffy and flakey as I'd like, I think pain au chocolate turned out much better than the plain croissants.

Next up with laminated dough, morning buns!

homemade croissants

After my recent try with making kouign amann, I decided that I wanted to try making homemade croissants as well. So I looked to this Martha Stewart recipe to give it a try!

The method was similar to making kouign amann - make a yeasted dough, let it rise, wrap the dough around some butter and alternate folding and rolling the dough with letting it chill and rest in the fridge.

The difference was that no sugar was rolled into the dough. 

And with croissants, long triangle shapes are cut out and then rolled into crescent shapes.

Oh, and croissants have egg wash before baking, whereas kouign amann do not.

Sadly, my croissants were not as puffy and flaky as I was hoping they would be. I guess this means I'll be experimenting with making more croissants soon!