Gluten Free Puff Pastry is an easy dough to make. It just needs around 30 minutes more of your love and attention than a shortcrust. And. Oh boy.... the rewards for that little extra loving are fab-u-lous!
The trick with making puff pastry is starting with super cold ingredients and keeping the dough cold while you work. And for this reason, I alway use frozen cubes of butter and iced water. In warmer weather you may need to chill your dough between each roll, fold and turn.
What makes a puff pastry puff is the layering of the dough in a process called laminating. In the recipe below, laminating is the process where you roll, fold and turn the dough a number of times to create multiple layers.
There is nothing like a homemade puff pastry and nothing more satisfying than biting into the buttery and flaky goodness that just melts in your mouth. Crisp, flaky and tender. Commercially bought gluten free puff pastry will be a thing of the past once you start making your own. And even better? Your gluten eating family and friends won't realise it's gluten free!
Recipe
Puff Pastry
Ingredients:
250 gm plain gluten free flour
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
200 gm butter, cut into approximately 2cm sized cubes and frozen
100-150 gm iced water
extra plain flour for dusting
Directions:
Add flour, xanthan gum and frozen butter cubes to a food processor or the thermomix bowl. Blitz 3 seconds speed 5 in the thermomix or in a food processor, pulse one or two times.
The butter should still be quite chunky with varying sizes from half cm up to almost the 2cm frozen cubes you started with . Any finer and the pastry will end up a being shortcrust. Still tasty! But no puff...
Turn out into a large bowl and add half the iced water. Mix with a spoon or spatula so the warmth of your hands does not warm the butter.
Keep adding iced water a little at a time until the dough comes together. The quantity of iced water needed will vary with different gluten free flours. I used FG Roberts plain gluten free flour for my pastries.
Roll out the dough into a long rectangle. The length and width does not really matter.
Fold over 1/3 of dough towards the middle of the rectangle, then fold the other end of the dough over the top, so it looks like a letter and trapping a little air in the folds.
Turn the dough 90 degrees on your surface and roll it out again into a rectangle
Repeat the same process folding over 1/3 of dough towards the middle of the rectangle, then fold the other end of the dough over the top, so it looks like a letter and trapping a little air in the folds.
Repeat the 90 degrees turn and folding like a letter four more times so you have completed a total of 6 roll, fold, turns.
Work quickly through the rolls, fold, turn process making sure the dough remains cold and the butter does not become sticky. If at any stage the dough becomes sticky, or the butter becomes soft, cover in cling film and chill in the freezer at least 5 minutes before completing the turning, rolling and folding process.
Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before using.
For pie cases, prick the base with a fork and blind bake 200 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes. Allow the case to cool before adding any filling.
Once filled, brush edges with beaten egg and top with the lid. Cut slits in the lid and brush with the beaten egg over the top. Bake 200 degrees Celsius 15-20 minutes until puffy, golden and crisp.
After cutting the dough, the remaining scraps maybe layered and re-rolled. However if kneaded or handled too many times, the layers will be lost and the pastry will not puff.