Kouign-amann is a sweet Breton cake, made with laminated dough. It is a round multi-layered cake, originally made with bread dough, containing layers of butter and incorporated sugar, similar in fashion to puff pastry, albeit with fewer layers. The cake is slowly baked until the sugar caramelizes and the recipe's butter expands the dough, resulting in its layered structure. A smaller version, “kouignette”, is similar to a muffin-shaped, caramelized croissant.
A specialty of the town of Douarnenez in Finistère, Brittany, where it originated around 1860, the pastry is attributed to Yves-René Scordia (1828–1878).
The name comes from the Breton language words for cake (kouign) and butter (amann), and in 2011 the New York Times described the kouign-amann as "the fattiest pastry in all of Europe."