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Vegan Chocolate Croissants

I doubted this was even possible, but boy, was I pleased with the outcome. Vegan chocolate croissants, made with homemade, dairy-free puff pasty. Yes, you read that correctly, these are vegan. This recipe is for my remarkable niece Maddie who loves sweets but must navigate, the often challenging, world of food allergies.

Traditional Puff Pastry

Puff pastry, or pâte feuilletée, which means layered dough in French, is a light, flaky, buttery pastry made from laminated dough; a culinary preparation consisting of many thin layers of dough separated by butter, produced by folding and rolling numerous times. During the baking process, the water in the fat vaporizes and expands, causing the dough to puff up and separate, and essentially fries the dough, resulting in a flaky, unforgettable pasty.

Traditional puff pastry is not that hard to make, but it is time-consuming, despite only having a few basic ingredients. The puff pastry has three main elements: the flour, known as the “détrempe”, the butter block, known as the “barrage”, and the “pâton”which means the package of dough made by combining the two (flour and butter block) into one.

When making traditional puff pastry the pâton gets repeatedly folded and rolled out, a process called “turning“, before being baked. This process occurs 6 times with 15-minute intervals in between to allow the dough to rest in between turns. It is this lengthy turning process that creates those thin, buttery layers this wonderful pastry is known for.

vegan chocolate croissants

Rough Puff Pastry

Rough puff pastry is what I used to make this vegan version and it’s easier, and less time-consuming than the traditional puff pastry. Also known as quick pastry, rough puff pastry has become popular with bakers because you still get bakery-style puff pastry without precise shaping and laminating butter with dough. In this vegan ruff puff pastry, I use a soy butter called Earth Balance buttery baking sticks. I must admit, although I bake with this butter alternative often, I was a little surprised at how well it worked in creating the flakiness I desired. The main trick in working with any butter alternative is working quickly and keeping it as cold as possible during the turning process. If the dough begins to soften too much, you should stop the turning process and refrigerate the dough for 20 minutes before continuing.

The chocolate I used to make these vegan chocolate croissants is my go-to allergen-friendly brand, Enjoy Life dairy-free dark chocolate bars. Instead of a traditional egg glaze, I simply brush the pastries with just a little corn syrup mixed with water before baking, to get that nice golden color I was searching for. The result is rather killer, flaky, dairy-free chocolate croissants that I hope my niece (and you) will love as much as I do.

About the Author

Andrea Potischman

I am a professionally trained NYC chef turned CA mom and food blogger. I post about real food, with doable ingredient lists that are family friendly.

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