Gluten free croissants

 Croissants are an art – that crisp, buttery flakiness is hard to replicate at home. They are not something you whip up in an afternoon. It really does take two full days to make them. Then add the technicalities of gluten free – it’s enough to send one grey. I was fortunate to undertake a croissant baking class in Paris last year. The precision and tips I learned gave me a great foundation to start my investigation into gluten free croissants. The techniques are the same, it’s just the ingredients that are different. This truly was one of the best cooking classes I have done anywhere in the world. It was provided by Ateliers Parisiens and I booked through Get Your Guide. I highly recommend it.

I am happy to share my recipe – it’s not perfection, but it does give consistent results, with the crunch, flakiness and butteriness that you would expect. I have done a lot of research to get this right - many hours of baking “failed croissants”. The most difficult part is getting the butter to bind with the flour to produce flaky lamination and not have the butter just melt away onto your tray. This is one of those recipes that I will continue to tweak for many years.

There are some important non-negotiable facts that you cannot work around.

1. The flour must be 12% protein. In France, for non-gluten-free, all you need is Gruau Rouge Viennoiserie Flour T45. This is made from carefully selected high-quality wheat; it delivers excellent elasticity, strength, and fermentation tolerance, making it ideal for artisanal bread, viennoiseries, and laminated dough. But for those of us requiring gluten free, getting the protein balance right has taken a lot of tweaking. For this reason, best results are gained by using the individual ingredients and not a pre-purchased blend.

2. The butter must be cold, unsalted butter with at least 85% fat. Read the label carefully – butter isn’t all the same.

3. Fresh yeast is by far the best, but I know finding it can be difficult. If you use dried yeast, you need ⅓ the weight of the fresh variety, though I have to admit I have only ever made croissants with fresh yeast. Yeast is fussy as to the temperature at which it blooms - 35-40°C is perfect. Any hotter and you will damage some of the yeast cells and not get the lightness of the dough you need to reach perfect lamination.

You will need a pastry mat with a ruler and a good rolling pin to make these. This is going to be precision baking. For best results, you also want a cool kitchen – winter is the perfect time to keep the thin layers of butter trapped in the pastry to form the flakiness, and not melting out of the dough.

One lesson I’ve learned is that croissants need a cooler proving environment than bread. Around 20-30°C is perfect. Unfortunately, my appliances don’t cooperate: the proving function on my steam oven is fixed at 40°C, and my regular oven bottoms out at 50°C - both too hot, and both prone to melting butter out of the layers.

My solution is to “trick” the oven. I give it a quick preheat, then turn it off and monitor the cavity with an oven thermometer until it drifts down to the right range. A laser thermometer helps me see where the hot spots sit - the roof and sides often stay well above 50°C. By resting the tray in the bottom third of the oven, I keep the dough in that sweet 20-30°C window.

I have also found that rolled croissants, not yet proved, can be frozen and successfully baked another day. Freeze the croissants on a tray. Once frozen, individually wrap in clingfilm and store in an airtight container. On the day before baking, unwrap and place on a lined tray in the fridge to thaw overnight. Then prove, egg wash and bake as per freshly made croissants.

And, as one of my favourite culinary icons, Julia Child would say, “Bon appetit”.

Makes 4-6

Yeast mixture

• 150 ml milk, warmed to 40°C
• 16 g fresh yeast (5 g dried yeast)
• 1 tsp caster sugar

Dough

• 110 g fine white rice flour
•  80 g tapioca flour
• 50 g glutinous rice flour
• 10 g psyllium husk
• ½ tsp xanthan gum
• 32 g white sugar
• 7 g salt
• 35 g butter, softened at room temperature
• Additional tapioca flour, for dusting

Butter block (beurrage)

• 140 g butter

Egg wash

• 1 egg yolk
• Dash of milk

Day 1

Make the yeast mixture by stirring the sugar into the warm milk. Crumble in the yeast and set aside for around 10 minutes until foaming.

Dough

Using a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment, combine the flours, psyllium husk, xanthan gum, sugar and salt. Mix well. Add the butter and yeast mixture. Run the mixer on the lowest speed for 5 minutes. Scrape down the bowl and then continue on medium speed for 10 minutes. Take a little bit of dough between your hands and stretch – it should have some elasticity. If it doesn’t stretch, continue on medium for another 5 minutes.

Remove the dough onto a clean board and gently knead to bring it into a smooth ball. Wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge for 1 hour.

Butter block

Place chilled butter between 2 layers of baking paper. Bash and roll until it is about 5 mm thick and a perfect square. Put back into the fridge until you are ready to use it (around 15 cm square).

Remove the dough from the fridge and roll it out lengthways. The dough needs to be the same width as your butter block and twice the length.

Place the butter block into the middle of the dough and gently remove the paper. Fold the two ends of the dough over into the middle, completely covering the butter. Turn the dough square so the seam is running vertically. Lightly dust the pastry mat and the top of your dough with tapioca flour. Roll the dough into a rectangle that is three times as long as it is wide. Your dough should be 10 mm thick evenly throughout.

Fold the short end of the dough closest to you up ⅔ of the length. Then fold the top down the other third. You should have a square, and if you look at the side you can see a squashed letter “G”. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and put it into the fridge for 2 hours. You have completed fold one.

Remove from the fridge. With the seam to your left, roll out the dough lengthways again, this time even longer. Fold the bottom third up. Bring the top down to meet the fold – that is fold 2. Now fold the long side over onto the rest of the dough – this is fold 3. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and place in the fridge overnight.

Day 2

With the 2 folds to your left, roll the dough into a rectangle about 35 cm long and about 3–5 mm thick. Brush away excess flour – you want this dough clean. Cut the dough into 4–6 triangles (depending on how wide you made the rectangle). The base of each triangle should be at least 5 cm long. The longer the base, the larger the croissant.

Taking one triangle at a time, place the wide end closest to you. Cut a small slit in the middle of the base and gently pull the dough to the side to slightly widen the base (it looks a bit like the Eiffel Tower). Tightly roll the triangle from the base up to the tip. Place your croissants on a baking tray lined with baking paper, leaving enough space for them to rise. Pop in the fridge for 10 minutes while you get your oven to temperature.

To prove

Make sure that the proving space is no warmer than 30°C (otherwise your butter will melt out). Prove at least 2 hours. You know they are ready by touching the top of the croissant – they will be soft and slightly springy.

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C.

Make egg wash by whisking together the egg yolk and milk. Being careful to only brush the top and not the lamination layers, lightly brush egg wash over the croissants. Bake for 20 minutes until golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack.