Easy Gluten-Free Croissant Recipe (Beginner Recipe) (2024)

FAQs

What is the best flour to use for croissants? ›

Although you can produce excellent croissants from all-purpose flour, bread flour, or frozen packaged white dough, the high gluten content makes for hard and rubbery rolling out. A mixture of 2 parts unbleached pastry flour and 1 part unbleached all-purpose flour gives a dough that is much easier to handle.

You want what is called puff pastry dough. It is usually found near pie crusts at the store. It is sold flat or folded, but isn't sold in a roll like crescent dough.

The key to a delicious gluten free croissant is that flakey, buttery crust. It may look complicated, but it's actually fairly simply. The trick is to take your time when making the pastry to ensure you get plenty of layers of butter in your pastry – that's how you get nice, flaky croissants.

First and foremost, you should use European or European-style butter which consists of 83% to 84% of butterfat. It should be 68° Fahrenheit and in the consistency of cream cheese, spreadable with a spatula.

Before baking, chill proofed croissants for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 375°F.

Use bread flour

Bread flour has a greater protein content than regular flour. This protein content is important when making croissants as it forms the basis of the croissant structure. I find that a protein content of 11-12% is best as it ensures your croissant can rise tall and stay at that height once baked.

For those of you who are abroad, you may notice that a lot of my recipes calls for T45 flour. If you don't have this on hand, you can mix some all-purpose flour with corn starch to have a quick alternative to cake flour at home. Cake Flour – 1 cup minus 2 tbsp (100g) all purpose flour + 2 tbsp cornstarch.

The fat and lactose in milk help with tenderizing the crumb of the bread making it softer and sweeter. The crust of the bread also gets more caramelization.

What type of flour should I use? Most French croissant recipes use pastry flour (T45) to produce a croissant with a light, delicate texture. Bread flour or All Purpose can be used to produce a chewier, more sturdy croissant.

Crescent rolls have a similar crescent-moon shape as croissants, but most aspects of these baked goods are different. Unlike croissants, crescent rolls are not laminated. This makes crescent rolls more bread-like than croissants.

Why are croissants unhealthy? ›

Because croissants are made with butter, they typically contain a decent amount of saturated fat per serving. For instance, a medium plain croissant provides nearly 7 grams of saturated fat — that's 54–63% of the daily limit if you eat a 2,000-calorie diet ( 1 ).

A gluten-free diet is based on the products which have a high glycemic index and are devoid of dietary fiber. These foods contain many simple carbohydrates and fats. These factors can give rise to nutritional deficiencies, constipation, and the development of the metabolic syndrome [82].

Keep in mind that some processed gluten-free foods contain high amounts of unhealthy ingredients such as sodium, sugar and fat. Consuming these foods can lead to weight gain, blood sugar swings, high blood pressure and other problems. So, a gluten-free label doesn't necessarily make a food healthy.

The law is usually said to mandate that straight croissants must be made with butter. The crescent-shaped croissants are said to not be regulated, but to usually be made with oil or margarine.

A classic French croissant has 55 layers (27 layers of butter), achieved with a French fold followed by 3 letter folds. Less layers will mean a different texture (less tender, more chewy, with more defined layers). Too many layers bring a risk of the butter getting too thin and melting into the dough.

As a croissant bakes, the butter melts and the water content in the butter turns into steam. It's that steam being trapped by the gluten in the dough that creates the delicate, flaky layers in a perfect croissant. The fat in butter can also extend the shelf life of your baked goods.