One of the greatest food sensations in the world is biting into a hundred flaky layers of crispy buttery dough. Making these vegan croissants is one of our favorite ways to achieve that feeling. We’ve enjoyed these a bunch of different ways–with chocolate, with butter, and have even used them to make breakfast egg or sausage sandwiches. You can never go wrong with croissants.
These vegan croissants are a variation of the dough we use in our vegan cream cheese danish recipe.
Make sure to check out the recipe notes for additional information and tips.
If you try this recipe, leave us a comment below to let us know how it goes. We would love to hear from you!
Vegan Croissants
Flaky, crispy, and buttery vegan croissants that are perfect for any savory and sweet pairings
Equipment
- rolling pin
Ingredients
Dough
- ¼ cup water (60g)
- ½ cup unsweetened soy milk (plus 1 tbsp) (135g)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp softened vegan butter (42g)
- 1 packet active dry yeast (about 2 ¼ tsp)
- 2 ¾ cup bread flour (343g)
- 3 tbsp sugar
- ½ tsp kosher salt (if using unsalted butter)
Butter Block
- ¾ cup vegan butter
Instructions
Make the dough.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, add in all of the dough ingredients.
- Mix on low for 2 minutes or until ingredients are incorporated. The dough will look dry and rough at first, but it should come together.
- Increase speed to medium-low and mix until a smooth, soft dough forms. This should take about 10-15 minutes. If the dough is too sticky and continues to stick to the sides and bottom of the bowl, add in flour one tablespoon at a time, allowing the flour to fully incorporate into the dough before adding another.
- You should be able to stretch the dough into a thin membrane before it rips. The dough should not stick to your hands.
- Lightly oil the bottom of a large bowl or the bowl you mixed the dough in. Remove the dough, form it into a ball, and place it into the oiled bowl. Roll the ball around to coat the top with oil as well. Tightly cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in size (about 1 hour).If you have a bowl with a lid, you can also use that instead of plastic wrap.
- Once the dough has doubled in size, lightly punch down the dough with your fist. Place the dough in the fridge for at least 2 hours and up to 16 hours. A longer rest will add more depth of flavor to the dough from the fermentation process.
Butter Block
- Cut the remaining butter (¾ cup) into small pieces. Fold a sheet of parchment paper from all four sides to form a 7" x 7" square. Unfold the parchment paper and place the butter pieces in the middle.
- Fold the pachment paper along the creases you made earlier. Flip the butter packet so it is seam-side down. Use a rolling pin to gently and firmly roll out the butter to create an even block of butter. The butter block should fully fill the parchment packet, including the corners.
- Place the wrapped butter block in the fridge until 10 minutes before you are ready to laminate the dough.
Lamination
- 10 minutes before you plan to take the dough out of the fridge, move the wrapped butter block from the fridge to the freezer.
- Remove the dough from the fridge and place it on a lightly floured surface. Roll out the dough into an 10" x 10" square. You can square out the corners with your hands first before and after rolling the dough to keep the corners from rounding too much.
- Remove the butter block from the freezer, unwrap it, and place it in a diamond position on top of and in the center of the dough.
- One corner at a time, fold the corners of the dough in towards the center of the butter block. The dough corners may slightly overlap. Pinch along the seams to seal the butter block into the dough.
- In our experience, since vegan butter is typically not as firm as non-vegan butters the butter might start becoming soft. If that is the case, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place it in the freezer for 10 minutes to give the butter time to firm up before continuing.
- Flip the dough so it is seam-side down. Lightly flour the top and bottom of the dough. Use a rolling pin to gently press down along the length of the top of the dough to create little indents in the dough. Turn the dough 90º and gently press down along the length of the dough again. The goal here is to make the butter inside the dough a little more pliable so it is easier to roll.
- Roll out the dough into a rectangle that is roughly three times longer than it is wide, dusting more flour as needed and occasionally moving the dough to ensure it doesn't stick to the surface. Make sure to roll both towards you and away from you to ensure the butter is evenly distributed inside the dough. Roll until the dough is between ¼ inch and ½ inch thick.
- Fold the dough into thirds like a letter by lifting one end (a third of the dough) of the rectangle up onto the center of the dough, followed by the other end of the rectangle. The resulting dough will be three layers stacked on top of each other. This is your first "turn" of the dough.
- Again, if you think your butter is becoming soft, wrap the dough in plastic and place it in the freezer for 10 minutes.
- Rotate the dough 90º. Repeat the rolling and folding process. This is your second "turn". Wrap and chill again, if necessary.
- Rotate the dough 90º a final time. Repeat the rolling and folding process. This is your third and final "turn".
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge. Let it rest for 30 minutes.
Shaping
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- Remove the dough from the fridge, unwrap, and place on a lightly floured surface. Roll out the dough into a rectangle approximately 12" x 18". If you'd like, you can slightly trim the edges of the dough.
- Cut the dough into thirds. And then cut each third in half diagonally to create 8 triangles.
- Make a 1 ½ inch slit on the base of each triangle and roll each one towards the tip. Place the croissant tip-side down onto the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaing pieces of dough.Note: We baked all of ours on one half sheet baking tray. We didn't think they would touch, but they did once they finished baking.
- Let rise until the dough is puffed and increased in size, about 1 hour.
Bake
- Preheat the oven to 400°F.
- Bake the croissants for 10 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 350°F and bake for an additional 12-15 minutes.
- Turn off the oven and remove the croissants once they are evenly golden brown.
Notes
- We make our dough and butter block the night before and then shape and bake the croissants the next day.
- The butter we use is Earth Balance buttery sticks. It stays firmer for longer compared to other vegan butters we have tried.
- Using a stand mixer makes kneading the dough a lot easier, but you can also knead these by hand. It just takes more work, of course.
- It’s okay if butter starts breaking through your dough and getting all over the place while you are rolling out the dough for the final time. You can still cut and shape the croissants. They just might not look too pretty in the end. Please don’t throw away your dough.
- Folding the parchment paper into the 7×7 inch square first helps with figuring out where to place the pieces of butter.
- For a shiny top, you can brush the croissants before you place them in the oven with some maple syrup thinned slightly with any plant milk.
Just made these for a New Years day breakfast. OMG they were awesome. The effort is worth the result!