Kouign Aman and brownies from Connecticut

We were out on a weekend trip to New Haven CT; home to Yale University, the Wooster street family pizzerias and Louie's Lunch - the inventor of the hamburger. Wooster Street and Wooster Square lay claim to being the Little Italy of New Haven. Decked out in traditional Italian colors of red, white and green flags, the street lives up to its billing with American-Italian restaurants and shops sporting signs of traditional Italian ice, cannoli and other Italian treats lining the street.

Off one of the side streets, we spotted a Saturday farm market (http://www.cityseed.org/) with stalls selling everything from fresh organically grown vegetables, fresh cheeses, jams and jellies to cured meats and neighborhood bakeries selling their goodies.
Wedged in between was a large stall from SoNo Bakery of Norwalk CT, vending pastries, confections, cookies, fresh fruit turnovers, breads, muffins and lots more.
Bewildered by the choices, we were attempting to navigate through the assortment of turnovers, muffins, tarts and pies on offer when we spotted this odd looking pastry with a even odder name 'Kouign Aman'. 'Kouign Aman' (pronounced KOO-ine ah-MAHN) is a pastry from the Brittany region in France. "Its pretty rare in the area and is one of our hot sellers" the man at the counter prompted us.

Apparently, it translates to “cake with butter” in Breton. Coming from the same family as the brioche, the croissant or the danish, it actually looked like a croissant gone wrong. It sports a rich inviting crisp golden shell studded with sugar crystals . Turn it over and you notice a glistening sticky underside thanks to a caramelized layer of sugar at the bottom.

Bite through the crunchy coating and the rich buttery taste comes surging through. The insides are not as hollow as a croissant; almost as flaky; but just a little denser than its famous crescent shaped sibling.

The crunchy caramelized sugar crust gives way to a softer breadlike inside. The sweetness from the caramel is well balanced by a mildly sour flavor from the yeast. In fact, the fermentation brings to mind, flavors of a Maharashtrian sweet called 'Anarsay'.
Apparently, the key difference between Kouign Aman and other baked pastries is that with every fold of the dough, sugar is layered on allowing it to meld and caramelize into the bready dough as the pastry bakes.

Surprisingly, there is none of the excessively cloying sweetness that one would expect from the sugar.Yes, all you 'Pain Au Chocolats' and 'Almond Croissants', you have a new challenger to the sweet puff pastry throne.

We picked one up to go; but couldn't resist tasting it by the time we got back to the car. One bite and we went back for more..

And how could we stop with at one treat? The chocolate brownie looked absolutely divine and longing to be picked up. It came home with us and opening up the neatly packaged sweet revealed a rich, dark, decadent, moist and messy chocolate nirvana.

SoNo Baking

101 S Water St

Norwalk, CT 06856

(203) 847-7666

sonobaking.com