I love questions like that, reader Melissa, thank you. Butter is salted for purposes of preservation. Modern refrigeration obviates the need for salt these days, but more than a few people are simply accustomed to the taste. When butter manufacturers salt butter, they add salt at a proportion of 1 – 2%. That doesn’t sound […]

Reader Alexandra writes: Your post about the seasonal changes of dairy reminded me of a treat from my adoptive homeland, the Neterlands. There, we have something called graskaas (pron. hraahs-kaahs) i.e. grass cheese. It is from the time when cows first get to nibble the first shoots of grass after a long, long cold winter […]

My feeling on that is yes. Though I’m not expert on Continental flours, it’s my impression that the gluten in French flour behaves differently than that in American flours. It seems not to be as stretchy as our own, but firmer. That difference may also help retain the integrity of the layers in kouign amann […]

So what’s winter butter? That’s a good question, and the answer is pretty much what you’d think: butter that’s produced in the wintertime. However it isn’t just cold weather that effects the texture of butter, it’s the winter diet of the dairy cows who give the milk. On a traditional farms, cows graze in the […]

Hey all! It’s so like me to lose emails, and recently I did it again. A whole bunch of them. So, if you sent in a question these last few weeks and have not received a reply, please re-send. I’m not ignoring you, I’m just technologically incompetent. – Joe

It isn’t possible to make it in America. At least not as it’s made in Brittany. The reason: ingredients. Traditionally, kouign amann is a layered (laminated) pastry with a special difference: it’s got sugar layered into it along with butter. This is a major no-no where laminated doughs are concerned, at least in America. Why? […]

Kouign amann. Say it with me: KWEEN yah-mon. The words mean “butter cake”, but they don’t sound very French, do they? That’s because they aren’t French, they’re Breton. And just who are the Bretons? you might well ask. In fact they are an ethnic group native to Brittany (Bretagne) in northeastern France. This group speaks […]

This week we’re off to the Middle East, the region where — most historians agree — the first layered pastries were invented. Laminated sweets have come a long way since then, but they still don’t get much more decadent than kouign amann, a Lebanese speciality so sweet and delicious that…oh no wait, that isn’t right. […]