hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with clean aman that's right
or should i say yes queen no actually I shouldn't
no one should but anyway I'm very excited to be showing you my technique
for what many people consider the hardest but also most delicious pastry
in the world okay for something to be worth this much effort it has to be way
past mind-blowing and this is so with that we'll go ahead and get started by
making a very simple bread dough which will begin with some warm water some
white sugar and some dry active yeast that we will let sit in a bowl for about
10 minutes to make sure it's alive and then once we have proof of life we will
add a little bit of melted butter most but not all of our flour and a pinch of
salt and then what we'll do is grab our most experienced wooden spoon and we'll
go ahead and give this a stir until it comes together into a very very very wet
sticky dough and by the way I'm using bread flour which I think works the best
but all-purpose should work as well but anyway we'll go ahead and stir that
together until it looks like this at which point we'll dump the last half cup
of our flour on the table and transfer our sticky dough on to that and then
what we'll do is sort of roll that around until it's coated in flour
at which point we'll start pushing in and pressing and eventually kneading and
in a perfect world by the time we've achieved a nice soft pretty sticky
elastic dough all that flour will have been worked in and the reason we just
didn't add it all at once is because I'm not sure we need that much so by using
this method is we need it once it feels like it's right and all the flowers not
absorbed yet we stop because it's right but if you just dump everything in
according to a recipe and start kneading it may or may not be perfect so long
story short this is how you really make bread okay it really is a feel thing and
as luck would have it that was the right amount of flour and I did in fact end up
with a beautifully soft slightly sticky fairly elastic dough which will go ahead
and transfer into a lightly buttered bowl and then we'll cover that and let
it sit for about an hour and a half or until it doubles in size yes of course
in a warm spot and will do while we're waiting for that is
make our season two sugar oh he how you heard me we're actually gonna take white
sugar and add some sea salt or kosher salt to it and that is just one of the
many secrets to this incredible pastry all right done correctly this is both
sweet and savory so we'll go ahead and give that a mix and set it aside while
we move on to prep our muffin pan which means brushing generously with melted
butter and once that set we'll go ahead and spoon in our sugar and toss it
around until the insides are coated and yes I missed you could just put the
sugar in the cups and after we've spooned in a generous amount what we'll
do is pick up the pan and give it the whole shake of sheikha as well as a nice
assortment of tips and turns and once we're pretty sure everything's coated we
can flip that over to knock out all the excess and sure if you want to clean the
top off a little bit go ahead that's not a bad idea
and I did I was speaking of clean up we want to make sure we scrape up any
excess and add it back to our bowl since we're gonna need that stuff as you will
see so we'll set that aside along with our prep pan and we'll go back and check
our dough and this is what mine look like after about 90 minutes and then
what we'll do once that's deflated as usual is transfer that onto a floured
surface and we will kind of press that down into a vaguely rectangular shape
and then using a rolling pin plus just enough flour so it doesn't stick we will
roll that out into a rectangle somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick oh and if
you were hoping for the exact measurements for the width and length
you are definitely on the wrong channel but really the exact size doesn't matter
just get it close to what you're seeing here and it's actually pretty hard to
roll into a rectangle so once we get it like this we can just sort of stretch
and pull it into the right shape and then once that set what we'll do is take
an entire stick a very very cold butter right mine was actually frozen and very
hard and we're gonna use this cheese grater to grate the entire stick onto
our dough and if possible try to leave an inch unbuttered around the edges and
by the way don't be a hero when you get down to a little piece just stop okay
don't lose a knuckle and then what we'll do once that set is flour our hands and
gently but firmly press that butter in and then what we'll do once our butter
has been successfully flattened out just go ahead and fold this into thirds just
like a letter if that helped and then once folded we'll go ahead and
square that up the best we can by pressing stretching and or pulling
and that's it our first phase is done we'll go ahead and transfer that onto a
sheet pan wrap it in plastic and pop in their fridge for about 30 minutes and by
the way if you thought an entire stick of butter was a ridiculously large
amount for that little bit of dough wait until you see what happens next
because what we're gonna do after we chill that for 30 minutes just pull it
back out and we are gonna roll it back out into a rectangle roughly the same
size as our first one although for some reason I went the other direction and
just like the first rectangle it's hard to do it just with the rolling pin so
don't be afraid to pull and stretch those corners and it's also not a bad
idea to make sure it's not sticking to the table and then once that set believe
it or not we're gonna grade over another entire stick a very cold butter so yes
by the time we're done with this it's gonna contain a half a pound of butter
although if it makes you feel any better the authentic version has more but
anyway we're gonna butter that and press it down again using some nicely floured
fingers and then we will fold that into thirds again and just like the first
time once I was folded we'll go ahead and square that up the best we can but
I'm like the first time we're not gonna refrigerate this all right what we're
gonna do is dust it with flour and roll it back out into a rectangle and once
that's been accomplished we'll go ahead and fold that into thirds and I know
someone out there just said hey you forgot the butter well first of all I'll
do the jokes and second of all we don't need any more butter two sticks is
plenty but anyway we'll fold that as shown and using only as much flour as we
need we'll roll that out one more time at which point we'll give that the last
and final fold and how many layers of butter did we build up I'm not sure I
didn't count I don't much care but I do know we have enough
and once we've completed that final fold we'll go ahead and transfer that to our
sheet pan wrap it in plastic and transfer it into the fridge for at least
an hour before we move to final assembly and
then once that dough has been thoroughly chilled we'll roll it out but not on
flour we're actually gonna sprinkle a generous amount of our seasoned sugar
onto the table onto which we will place our laminated dough and before we start
rolling we'll apply a whole bunch of sugar to the top and then what we're
gonna do is roll this out applying sugar often and generously to both sides as we
roll and once it feels like the sugar you've sprinkled on has been rolled in
put some more on and one small heads up here because that
sugar and salt is gonna start pulling moisture from the dough we don't want to
take a tremendous amount of time to do this all right so be quick but don't
hurry and like I said we'll keep rolling and sprinkling sugar and you're gonna be
surprised how much we can actually roll in okay I'm not sure you're gonna use
everything you mixed up but you're gonna use a lot and by the way some people add
the sugar as they're doing their turns and folds but I prefer this method and
it seemed to work out very well but anyway we'll keep doing that turning it
occasionally until we have a rectangle between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick
at which point we'll stop and take a pizza cutter and we will trim the edges
and keep in mind we're eventually going to cut 12 squares which means cutting it
3 by 4 which means we don't want a perfect square although we do want the
edges pretty straight so you can see I'm doing a little fine-tuning here and do
not under any circumstances throw away those scraps you could just bake those
off to make the world's best and most confusing cookies but anyway once I had
that trimmed I made two cuts this way to make three pieces and then three cuts
this direction so that we hopefully end up with twelve close two square pieces
and those are definitely not perfect but as I like to say close enough for
YouTube and that's it once those are Cobble go ahead and transfer those into
our pan after he asks you guessed it sprinkling on some more sugar and then
there are so many different ways you can shape these but my favorite is to do it
so all four corners meet in the middle which is what I thought I was doing here
they said my fingers had their own idea and as soon as I
place that in I realized it didn't look quite right so I did another one it
figured it out and here's how I really wanted to do it okay all four corners
coming together in the center are you see that that I think's going to give us
the best-looking Queen Oh mom so that's how I did the rest
and actually when tree folded the first one which by the way would have worked
and many people like to do them that way so suit yourself
I mean you are after all the leprechaun of your Queen Amon and I know
leprechauns aren't French but neither is this name it actually has Celtic origins
believe it or not oh by the way don't be scared
this snows gonna continue to rise so if it looks thicker when we shape it that's
why and then what we'll do once those are all panned up just top them with a
little more sugar because why the heck not and while some people do like to
take their finger and kind of push it down the center to seal everything I
don't and don't think you should okay I think that's gonna prevent them from pop
it out and make it sort of the crown shape I'm going for alright people love
pointy food and then what I like to do is let these sit for 10 minutes to give
them a little tiny bit of a proof at which point those are ready to transfer
into the center of a 375 degree oven for about 25 to 30 minutes or until
beautifully browned and puffed and basically looking like one of the most
beautiful things you've ever seen and then very very important if you don't
pull these out of the pan while they're hot you are not pulling them out of the
pan okay once that salted caramel cools they're gonna stick in the pan and
you're never gonna get them out so while they're how carefully and quickly
transfer those to Iraq where you should probably let him cool for at least 15
minutes before attempting needs and while I was waiting I gave him the old
fork test so you could hear exactly how crispy these get
oh yeah Fork don't lie and then after waiting in excruciating lis long 15
minutes I would infer taste and bit into the smallest ugliest one and that my
friends has to be tasted to be believed okay we're talking sweet salty buttery
crunchy sticky tender it just has everything and even though there was
like a half pound of butter in these they are not greasy they're not heavy
how is that possible I don't know and I don't actually even need to know so I
went ahead and plated one up so I could take some pictures and of course he did
another one and while you certainly don't want to overdo it the salt really
is the key here okay if you like salty caramel you're gonna go nuts for these
it's like a salted caramel sauce meets a croissant meets a potato chip and right
here you're gonna get a great look at those beautiful layers we created with
all that buttering and folding and of course that's always the big question at
the end of one of these videos was it worth it and there's really no answer
for that I mean is running a marathon worth it is climbing Everest worth it
swimming across an ocean or trying to make pizza crust out of cauliflower I
mean there really is no answer is it worth it although you know what after
that last bite I'm gonna say I dunno and it is worth it which is why I'm gonna
finish by saying I really do hope you give these a try soon so head over to
food whooshes calm for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual
and as always enjoy
you