I’ve been wanting to make gluten free puff pastry for SOO long now. And now I realise why it takes so long to make! Wow! But, it is totally worth it, and i’m looking forward to perfecting my recipe! There are some tweaks, bumps and hiccups along the way, but I really enjoyed today as it felt like one of those points where you achieve something! So i’m really happy.

The puff pastry day…

Rubelle’s Moon‘s Puff Pastry:

Dough:
1/2 Cup Sweet rice flour (see my photo for what the packet looks like)
1/2 Cup Flaxseed
1/2 Cup Soya flour
1/2 Cup Gluten Free Plain Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
2 x tsp Xanthan gum
3/4 cup cold water

Here are the flours (in order of the list)

Butter:
3/4 Cup Unsalted butter (take it out the fridge when you set out your ingredients, so it’s somewhere between cold and room temp.)
1 x tbsp Sweet rice flour (see my photo for what the packet looks like)

Instructions:

The Dough-

1. Sift all of the flours into a large mixing bowl with the gum and salt.

2. Make a well in the middle of the flours (etc.) and pour in a little water at a time like this – pour water, gather together, pour water, gather in flour and so on, until you have a dough. Then knead it all together into a ball (don’t over-work it though! This isn’t bread, it just needs gentle encouragement). Tip – keep your hands cold during this so the dough doesn’t become claggy (clogged up/sticky/whatever word your area of the world uses?)

3. Once you’ve got a ball of dough, cover it in cling film and put into the fridge for 1 hour.

The butter:

1. Take a sheet of greaseproof paper about 30x30cm and sprinkle the flour onto it. Place the butter straight on top (not cutting or flattening, it just needs to be a pile o’ butter – see picture). Sprinkle more flour on top of the butter.

2. Put another piece of greaseproof paper on top, take a rolling pin and in stages, flatten down the butter (I gave this lovely task to the boyfriend who enjoyed – I think – this part as it was obvs the most manly part of making puff pastry!!). One flattened to about hand size, remove the top sheet of paper, fold the butter in half on itself and repeat the flattening stage. Repeat this process until you have a finger-thick pat of butter.

3. Shape the butter so it resembles something like the picture below, wrap in clingfilm and chill for 10 minutes maximum – you don’t want the butter to get too cold or too hard! If you make the butter too soon before the pastry is done, just leave it out and then put it in in the last ten minutes (I speak like a pro on this part as this is what we did… I got way too over-excited for the pastry!!)

Assembling the dough and butter:

1. Roll out the dough to 1cm thickness (the pic is halfway through rolling).

2. Put the butter pat into the middle of the rolled out dough and score around it.

3. Cut into the dough up to the corners.

4. Fold the pieces over the butter (be careful as the dough is a little crumbly!)

5. Smooth down the edges.

6. Smooth down the edges of the parcel some more with a little water (that’s floury water there in the shot glass, not murky vodka! Come on!!! This was tricky, but not that bad!)

7. Roll out the pastry – be really careful about this (the butter peeking through the dough is where I was testing to see how much force I could put on the dough, and it really is hardly any, so be so careful and do the rolling little bit by little bit, gradually moving up the dough rather than going from top to bottom!! Bet you’re glad I tried it as now i’m expecting perfect pastry from you!)

8. Finally, fold the dough in three as you would a letter, wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for one hour.

9. Remove from the fridge and roll out to 1cm thickness, then fold over three times again. Wrap back in clingfilm and put back into the fridge for one hour. Repeat this three more times. On the final time after rolling, leave in the fridge for two hours or overnight (I think overnight would be best as mine was still a little crumbly after a few hours!)

My notes:

1. Try different flours (need to find a sweet one so think i’ll go to the Chinese Supermarket)

2. No flaxseed – think this made is crumble too much

3. Try to use cornflour for a different texture

3. Leave overnight in the fridge (we only had a day to make this, so I would like to try it again for the time-scale)

The recipes that I researched:

http://www.tarteletteblog.com/2010/04/recipe-gluten-free-puff-pastry.html

http://glutenfreegirl.com/gluten-free-rough-puff-pastry

Here’s the first recipe I tried out with my puff pastry (which I really wish of left in the fridge for longer, but i ran out of time on Sunday -it was already last dinner time- so I’m hoping when I try out the other half it will be better after a night in the fridge):

Beef Wellington

So, it’s a little uneven? So it isn’t all golden and shop-bought-fantastic? I’m proud of my gluten free puffed up pastry! It tasted yum! And i’m going to get better!

I used the recipe from Gordon Ramsay aka Chef Ramsay on the Channel 4 website. Here’s the original recipe:

http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/gordon-ramsay/beef-wellington-07-12-21

I then adapted this recipe to be gluten free by making a few changes! It was absolutley delicious! I know my pastry needs some work, which I’ll be working on soon, but at the moment, i’m happy with my first attempt as it was light and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside (I got that tip from watching the Britain’s Best Dish section on Saturday Kitchen!) So, give it a go! Definitly one to serve up on a Sunday as an alternative to a roast beef.

Gluten Free Changes: 

1. Gluten free puff pastry

2. Gluten free mustard

Serving tips:

1. Served with veg as I thought any potato dish would have been too heavy, and i’m glad I did this as I was full but not too full.

2. This dish serves two with veg or I think 4 if you did potatoes and all the trimmings!

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon