Review: Kouign Amann

@TraderJoes

$5.49 (4 pastries)

If you’ve never had a kouign amann, fair warning, a good kouign amann will ruin you for all other pastries. It will become your new standard for pastry deliciousness. You have been warned.

Now don’t worry about Trader Joe’s kouign amann. It does after all, say “inspired" on the package. Meaning, that a real kouign amann was a source of inspiration for what Trader Joe's was calling a kouign amann. Though, an inspired-food can definitely be surprising, unique, and tasty. Therefore, I did not have high expectations for Trader Joe’s kouign amann but was still curious to try it.

I felt that Trader Joe’s made a hybrid, croissant-danish (that was inspired by the kouign amann). The buttery, sugary goodness that should have been permeating throughout the layers of dough and crunchy caramelization was simply focused in the middle. Creating a filling of sorts, kind of like a danish. If Trader Joe’s had gotten anywhere near close to a real kouign amann, that would have been a food science miracle. A kouign amann was not an easy pastry to take on. I applaud Trader Joe's ambition.

Glad I tried it: Yes

Would I buy it again: No, I know what a real kouign amann tastes like