Rice & Beans : Vegan Croissant Recipe (with pictures)

For anyone who is vegan, I know there are many things you think you'll never eat again, including delicious flaky croissants.

Think again!

These babies were made using completely cruelty free ingredients!

And we know they're not perfect, they're all a little oddly shaped. But they are all delicious!

This is what happened when I pulled one apart:

Flaky deliciousness!

Of course I quickly smothered it in more Nuttelex and devoured it.

Enough drooling over the pictures! Let's get baking!!!!

Ingredients:

Butter:

60g Shortening (I used Crisco, but you can use any form of vegetable shortening)

100g Vegan margarine - preferably with a high fat content (I used Nuttelex Original)

Dough:

20g Shortening

30g Vegan margarine

275g Plain flour

12g Sugar

6g Salt

5g Dried yeast

100g Water (cold)

50g Rice/Soy milk (cold)

Glaze:

50g Sugar

50-100ml Water

Method:

Mix all dough ingredients together in a Kitchen Aid (or similar) until dough is elastic. Add more water (cold), or flour as needed.
Transfer dough to a floured bowl, sprinkle flour over the top, cover in cling wrap and refrigerate for an hour-ish (I'm a very impatient person, so you can refrigerate for less or more time, more preferably)
Melt the shortening, mix through the margarine until completely combined and smooth. Refrigerate.
Remove dough from fridge and roll out into a rectangle.
Remove butter from fridge once semi-set and lay down cling wrap on bench.
Place the butter on the cling wrap, and mould into a flat square around half the size of the rectangle dough.
Cover butter square in cling wrap, and replace in fridge until cold.
Once cold, unwrap the square of butter, and place on one half of the dough.

I actually broke up the pieces of butter and spread them out more evenly on the half after this
Fold the other half of dough over the buttered side and leave to acclimatise to each other. (around 10 mins)
Once acclimatised, grab a rolling pin and roll out the rectangle (forward and back - not sideways to create a long rectangle) until about 2-3cm thick. NB Please be gentle in this section! You do NOT want the butter coming through the dough! If you do, get a pinch of flour and sprinkle over before continuing to roll, and do not roll much further.
After rolling out, take one side of the rectangle, and fold it 1/3 of the way over the middle, then fold the other side over the top - These are the beginnings of the beautiful layers!
Rotate the folded dough around until a folded side is facing you. It should look a bit like an S shape facing your body.
Roll out again, forward and back, until the dough is around 2-3cm thick. If the butter starts coming through please be careful, and sprinkle some flour over the top.
Repeat 11 again.
Place on a chopping board and cover in cling wrap, refrigerate for around 10 mins.
Take out of the refrigerator and place on the bench so that the folds are facing you again to repeat the rolling process again. Re-fold, place the folds to you, and re-roll.
Once the dough is flat and long, make sure it is as squared as can be, then grab a knife and cut a diagonal line from the left corner to about 10cm from the bottom left corner \
Continue cutting along from left to right, leaving around a 10cm gap between cuts.
Using the second cut from the left as the starting point, slice down to the bottom left corner, to create 2 triangles. Follow along the dough in the same way. NB Sharp knives are the best for this, the dough won't bunch up as much when cutting.
Take your first triangle, and make a small cut between the top 2 points of the triangle, and stretch out the sides.
Roll the dough up from this side, stretching out the tip slightly to elongate the roll.
Place the tip on the bottom of the rolled dough, and attach the two ends to each other to create a weird circle.

Look at these little cuties!!!
Let the little croissant prove while you complete the rest of the rolls. Place somewhere warmish to prove.
Place on a well greased tray in oven at 160C for around 15-20 mins depending on your oven. Mine is not great, and not fan forced, nor is it gas :( so it kinda depends on how yours operates, but i prefer to cook mine for longer at a lower temp to make sure it cooks all the way through.
While the little beauties are baking, place water and sugar in a saucepan over moderate heat. Dissolve the sugar, and let it simmer until it becomes like a watery syrup, then take off heat.
Once the croissants are baked, take out of the oven and cool until they can be handled.

Waiting for the croissants was tedious for myself, and the cat.
Dip the top of the croissants in the glaze and let set - PLEASE NOTE that if you want these to be savoury croissant, e.g. with a yummy vegan queso or something in it (recipe soon!), then DON'T glaze!!!
If you're not choosing to sugar glaze yours, brush them with some melted vegan margarine before baking. Et voila!