Vegan Croissants 🥐

Everybody loves fluffy, freshly-baked Croissants. With jam or chocolate or whatever. Croissants rock!

Now I already hear the background voices whispering: "Well, a vegan croissant without egg is not gonna taste as good anyway".

So wrong because the egg essentially is only used to make it shiny at the end. The dough is egg-free either way so there is no need of replacing it 👌

The first time we had Vegan Croissants (from a local organic market) we expected them to taste dry or simply worse than normal ones. But we were oh so wrong: We never had better Croissants - ever 😍

The typical Croissant dough is not much different to typical puff pastry dough. At this point people have prejudices again that it's the "most complex thing one can make". But that really seems to be an urban Myth because there are certainly more complex things than making puff pastry - e.g. tax declaration or a proper sour dough.

Honestly: There is nothing really "complicated" about this dough. The only thing you need to bring is reading skills and a little bit of patience and love.

If you are looking for a recipe like "Just throw everything in a pot and stir-fry" then yes, this might be the wrong recipe for you. Besides that: I know you can do it and you will love your homemade croissants 💖

The Best is yet to come: The ingredients in this recipe are providing you with ~6 Vegan Croissants. Which means you get just enough for the whole week and you do not have to bake all of them at once since you can store them in the freezer.

Tip: If you double the amount to make ~12 croissants for the next weeks then make 2 doughs and not one big dough. The risk of breaking the dough apart is way higher if you use such a big dough.

What you will need

If you need to feel the pain that it takes to make a proper dough then you can simply use your hands and you are good to go.

However I recommend using a proper kitchen machine that helps you making the dough soft and the ingredients in the dough distributed equally.

Here are some if you need inspiration: Kitchen Machines.

Ingredients

Ingredients for the Vegan Croissant Dough

• 20g Fresh Yeast
• 70ml Plant Milk, room temperature
• 120ml Sparkling (!) Water
• 375g All-Purpose Flour (e.g. EU Type 550)
• 40g Sugar
• 6g Salt
• 1tsp Vanilla Sugar
• 30g Plant Oil
• 1tsp Bicarb

Ingredients for the Layers (Tours)

• 175g vegan Butter
• Baking Paper

The Puff Pastry is made of 2 components: The actual dough plus the block of butter. The block of butter is the "butter layers" which lead to its fluffiness whilst baking since the butter splits up layers of dough making up the typical croissant structure.

The Croissant Recipe

Instructions for the Croissant Dough

1. At first we mix the yeast with 2 tablespoons of our milk until the yeast is completely dissolved in the water.
2. We then add the rest of the milk to add and put the milk-yeast mix to a warm place e.g. near a heater (covered with a lid).
3. Let it rest for 1 hour.

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4. After the resting time you can add the rest of the ingredients for the croissant dough. Knead it properly. I normally use the KitchenAid 2mins on medium level.
5. Let the dough rest at room temperature for 1 hour.
6. Knead it again for 1-2 minutes.
7. Let it rest again but this time in the fridge for at least 1 hour (better 2 hours).

Meanwhile: Preparing the Block of Butter

Accordingly to our chosen amount of dough we need to prepare a fitting block of butter - square format. Sounds complicated? Not really: We simply reshape the butter you bought 👌

Again: Please read all of it and do not let yourself down by stuff that sounds complicated but is actually super easy 🥳 - Also check some of the photos to get a glimpse of its simplicity.

1. For the base amount of this recipe we need a roughly 15x15cm shape of butter. If you do not have a ruler and you feel that this is "too complicated" then here is an easier solution: Wait for the croissant dough to be ready, flatten the dough to a ~1cm thick square and then make a butter block that is roughly the half of that size. In case you have a ruler you can use baking paper and fold it at exactly 15cm so you see where to place butter pieces.
2. Tear apart the butter e.g. with a knife. I like to use the existing butterblock and try to cut a few rectangles out of it which I then lay next to each other making already roughly a square shape - that is the easiest way I found doing it.
3. Now fold the baking paper from the sides on top of the butter such that the butter is now covered by baking paper. Now you can use a rolling pin to distribute the butter equally and form a square shape.\
4. It is completely normal that the butter distributes unequal first. Open the folded baking paper again cut some off with a knife and redistribute. Repeat this until a equally distributed block of butter is given in square shape.
5. Now put the block of butter with the baking paper into the kitchen such that it hardens up again.

Folding the Vegan Croissants: Touring and Rolling

Now that are dough had proper resting time and we prepared a block of butter we need to start the get-together of the butter and the dough to make the final croissants. Before rolling them we need to "tour" the croissants 3 times - this is what the folding process is called that creates the butter layers in the dough.

Attention: It is really important that you do the fridge breaks as proposed. Otherwise the butter is becoming to soft in between und you will not get the typical croissant consistency because of the softened layers. But do not worry too much: Tastewise it would still be yummy. Just different.

1. Take the croissant dough and roll it to a square shape of roughly 1cm thickness such that it is ca. double the size of your butter block.
2. Get your block of butter out the fridge and put it diagonally on your dough square.
3. Fold the dough from the sides to the middle on top of the butter such that the dough covers the butter.
4. Put this "envelope" now back to the fridge for 30mins such that it hardens.
5. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it primarily in one direction. This means that the square envelope dough packed with butter is rolled to a lengthy rectangle of ca 1cm thickness.
6. Now the first "tour" starts.
7. Fold the dough from the long side once from one side and then fold the other side on top if it such that a new rectangle is created with 3 layers of dough, equally sized: Bottom dough part, middle and top.
8. Back to the fridge for 30mins.
9. Since you folded the dough inwards from the long sides the long side became the short side. This is good because we follow this intuitively by now rolling the dough from the longer side. Or in other words: With each fold the long side naturally changes and you just always roll the long side. No reason to even think about it.
10. Same as in step 7 you will now fold it from the long side in making again 3 new layers of dough: bottom, middle, top.
11. Now same game: Back to the fridge, then get it out again, roll it, fold it.
    
    
12. Now in the fridge for 30mins (last time, I promise) and then just roll it to a rectangle - no folding anymore.
13. Cut out lengthy triangles from that rectangular dough that will make your croissants.
14. Now just roll these triangles tightly from big to small end. There is your croissant!
15. Now put the finished croissants on baking paper and let them rest again for 1 to 2 hours.

Baking the Croissants

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (374°F) - Standard Two-Sided Heat, no air circulation.
2. When the oven is hot bake the croissants 18-22mins depending on your preferred color.
3. Get 'em out, let 'em cool down and enjoy these wonderful, lovely, vegan croissants! 💚 🤩 🥐

Croissants for the whole Week: Freezing Croissants? Sure thing!

After having rolled your Croissants and having them given the proper final rest you can simply freeze them - pre-baking of course.

To avoid them glueing together you can simply take a plate or a box with baking paper and then distribute the croissants on it with 2cm distance so that they cannot freeze-glue to each other.

As soon as they are frozen (after ~2 hours) you can use a baker's bag and just throw them all in the same bag. There is no risk of glueing together anymore and this will make room for even more croissants 🤩

I simply love this recipe. It took me ages to come up with the final solution but even more so am I happy with the result. It just works and the Croissants are so wonderfully light and fluffy and soft 👨🏽‍🍳