America's Test Kitchen

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -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."

"America's Test Kitchen" is brought to you by the following.

Plugrà European-style butter was created for all chefs, cooks, and bakers.

Slow-churned with 82% butterfat for a smooth texture and more pliability for flaky crusts.

Plugrà -- from professional kitchens to your home.

Sailing with American Queen Voyages brings you to mighty rivers and unique expeditions, where passionate explorers can discover the continent of North America.

You can learn more about our voyages at AQVoyages.com or contact your travel advisor.

Sur la Table, where you can discover an assortment of provisions for your next meal or gathering, from cookware and tools from a wide variety of kitchen brands to hands-on cooking classes.

Visit us at surlatable.com.

♪♪ -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.

-All right.

-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 teaspoon of table salt and 1/2 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.

-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.

Bridget, this looks great.

It's been five minutes.

That dough has come together nicely.

Let's get it out of the bowl.

-Ooh!

-This is looking like it's gonna stick to that counter, so... -[ Laughs ] -...I'm gonna throw a little flour down.

We're gonna round this out and kind of squish it into about a 5x5 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 1 hour or up to 24 hours.

All right, Bridget, now that the dough is in the fridge, let's move on to the butter.

-All right.

-We're gonna shape our butter into a packet with the help of this little parchment sheet.

-Hmm.

-I folded it into a 6x9-inch rectangle.

I'm just gonna open it up.

-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 teaspoon of table salt.

It tempers that sweetness a little bit... -Yes.

-...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 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.

This looks great.

Now gonna transfer all of this to our little packet.

So let's mush this down a little bit, fold it over.

I'm just gonna press this down until it's about 1/2-inch thick.

That looks pretty good.

Now we'll refold this.

-And then you send it in a letter to me.

-[ Laughs ] I mean, the post office will deliver anything if I put a stamp on it, right?

-[ Chuckles ] -Great.

I just want to make sure it's nice and rectangular.

And I'll use a rolling pen 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.

-Mmm!

-I've got a nine-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.

-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.

-Okay, great.

-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.

-Hmm.

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 18x6 1/2, keeping the short side parallel to me.

-Okay.

-Great.

-Lovely.

-Now, butter packet.

This is going right in the center.

Peel this off.

-Mmm!

-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 want to 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.

We want to 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 21x7 inches.

A little bit wider than seven's okay.

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... -Mm.

-...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, makes a hot mess, and we do not want that.

We're a little bit wider than seven, 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.

-Ah.

-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.

Go.

We're rolling it to 21x7.

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.

-Lovely.

-Next, we have to make this into a round.

-Oh.

Spoke too soon.

-[ Laughs ] I'm gonna roll this into an 11-inch square.

I just want to 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... -Yes!

-...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 kind of give it a little nudge.

Right.

Now I'm gonna roll it out one last time into 9-1/2-inch round, and then we'll get it in the pan.

-Okay, great.

-That's pretty close.

So just pick it up.

Slide it in place.

-Lovely!

-There 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.

-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.

-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 will 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.

-Mmm!

-How great does this look?

-Mmm!

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.

-Mm.

-It'll firm up.

It's really soft right now, actually.

-Okay.

So how long?

-10 minutes.

-Ah, that's not too bad.

10 minutes are up, Lan.

[ Both laugh ] -Set a timer, I see.

So I'm gonna invert it onto a plate.

-Mmm.

-Heard it.

-Could hear the drop.

-Yeah.

Always a good sign.

-And I shall lick the parchment.

-Right?

The reveal.

-Mmmmmm!

-Delish.

You can see it still needs a little bit of setting up.

-Gorgeous.

The smell of the caramelized butter... -Oh.

-...is outrageous right now.

-It's so good.

Now, I'm gonna be serving it on this board.

-Okay.

-And it can go right on our serving board.

Just flip it over.

-Lovely.

[ Chuckling ] Ohhh!

-And you know how you talked about crisp?

-Yes.

-We gotta wait 30 minutes for crisp.

-I will wait for crisp.

[ Crunching ] Listen to that.

-Now, this is supposed to serve 8 to 10, but I cut us bigger pieces.

[ Chuckles ] -8 to 10?

[ Laughs ] -I know, right?

-That's so funny.

Oh, my goodness!

Good grief.

I just want to 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.

-Oh, the best.

They're brilliant.

They're absolutely brilliant.

-Mmm!

[ 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.

-Mm.

-And there's, like, a jelly-ish syrup.

It's delicious.

-This is the ultimate... -Yeah.

-...of French pastry.

-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 want to 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."

-[ Laughs ] -Yum!

-Yeah.

♪♪ Sometimes at French bakeries or bistros or boulangerie, you'll find these beautiful boules of bread that were baked, shaped, and they feature these gorgeous designs on the outside, like, say, wheat sheaves.

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.

-Ooh.

-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's gonna relax and the bread can spread a little bit... -Mm.

-...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... -Mm!

Mm-hmm.

-...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 line-up of five different bannetons in different materials.

They come in all kinds of different shapes and sizes.

We chose nine-inch round bannetons, and that's good for a loaf that weighs up to a kilo, or 2.2 pounds.

-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.

-Mm.

-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.

-Yes.

-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 on to 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 them into the dishwasher.

-True.

-These other ones are natural materials, so you have to clean them a little more carefully.

-Mm.

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 want to score your own loaf, that's great.

If you want to pick up the pattern of the wicker, not so great.

-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... -Mm.

-...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... -Right.

-...you're good to go.

If you want to 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 a liner.

-Okay.

-We bought the liner.

The first couple of doughs 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 these 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.

-Hmm.

-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.

♪♪ -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.

-Mm-hmm.

-Right?

And we achieve that by using a madeleine tin.

-Yep.

-It's very popular.

You can buy it in any cake shop.

-Mm-hmm.

-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.

All right.

I think we have them all.

Now we can move into making our madeleine batter.

-Mm-hmm.

-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.

-Okeydoke.

-Okay?

So we're starting with 1 cup of cake flour.

-Mm-hmm.

-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.

-Mm-hmm.

-To that, I'm gonna add two whole eggs and one egg yolk.

-Okay.

-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.

All right.

It's been five minutes.

This looks pretty foamy.

-Mm-hmm.

-I'm really happy with it.

I'm gonna add 1/2 cup of sugar and a tablespoon of vanilla extract, and then I'm gonna whip it for another five minutes.

Same speed.

-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.

All right, 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.

-[ Chuckles ] It does.

-Yeah.

It's time to get it into the madeleine pan.

All right, 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.

-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.

-All right, 1 1/2 tablespoon of batter per mold.

-Per mold.

Okay, So I'm just gonna finish filling these molds for our little cakes.

-Great.

-All right, that's the last one, and -- -Nicely done.

-Thank you very much.

And these are ready to go into the oven.

But if you notice, we still have half the batter left.

-Mm.

-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'll be ready to go.

Ooh.

♪ These look amazing ♪ There we go.

Wow!

-You can tell they must be good because you started to sing a little bit there.

-Oh, yeah.

-[ Laughs ] -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.

-Smells delicious.

-It smells so good.

And we got that beautiful golden edge that madeleines are very much known for.

-mm-hmm.

-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.

-I love it so much.

Very -- -That little hump on the backside that makes them not lay flat -- that is a classic shape.

-These are looking great.

-Oh!

-I'm just grateful that they're popping out so easily.

That means we oiled our tin properly.

-Mm-hmm.

-Right?

All right.

Now that those are done, we're going to clean up.

-Mm-hmm.

-We're gonna re-grease 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?

[ Both laugh ] -I'll try and get one.

-They're beautiful, Elle.

-Thank you very much, and I'm gonna finish them off with a little confectioners' sugar... -Oh, I love that.

-...for looks!

It feels so traditional, so classic, so French.

-So French.

-I'm just gonna just take two, so... -[ Laughs ] -They're perfectly paired with our coffee.

-Mm-hmm.

All right.

-Let's dig in.

-Uh-huh.

Mmm!

Mm-hmm.

-I live for that crunchy edge.

-[ Chuckles ] -I do.

I'm gonna dip it in my coffee.

-Mmm!

They're light, they're tender.

Mmm!

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.

-Mm-hmm.

-If I could eat these every day... -[ Laughs ] We'd be in trouble.

-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 want to 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.

-Dunkin' cookies.

-[ Chuckles ] Let us help you with dinner tonight.

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"America's Test Kitchen" is brought to you by the following.

Plugrà European-style butter was created for all chefs, cooks, and bakers.

Slow-churned with 82% butterfat for a smooth texture and more pliability for flaky crusts.

Plugrà -- from professional kitchens to your home.

Sailing with American Queen Voyages brings you to mighty rivers and unique expeditions, where passionate explorers can discover the continent of North America.

You can learn more about our voyages at AQVoyages.com or contact your travel advisor.

Sur la Table, where you can discover an assortment of provisions for your next meal or gathering, from cookware and tools from a wide variety of kitchen brands to hands-on cooking classes.

Visit us at surlatable.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪