Recipe For Gluten Free Puff Pastry

This gluten free puff pastry is the real deal: incredibly flaky, buttery and tender, and it puffs up beautifully in the oven. The recipe is 100% reliable and fail-proof: it requires minimal effort and very little active prep time, and it’s suitable even for baking beginners. You need just 6 ingredients to make it (no frozen butter!) and you’d never know that it’s gluten free.

If there’s one thing I firmly believe (aside from the fact that there’s no such thing as too much chocolate, but that’s a whole other story) it’s that no matter how good a recipe is, if it’s too complicated or likely to fail if you make even the tiniest mistake, it might not be worth it.

Well, I can confidently say that this gluten free puff pastry recipe is the total opposite of that. Because it’s almost ridiculously easy, it requires minimal effort and very little active prep time, it’s suitable even for total baking beginners, and it’s super forgiving – and therefore essentially fail-proof.

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At the same time, it gives truly PHENOMENAL results. I honestly still can’t quite believe that a gluten free puff pastry that’s this easy to make can be so fabulously flaky, buttery and tender. It puffs up beautifully during baking and it has that incredibly delicate, shattery texture that’s characteristic of a really good puff pastry. AND IT’S GLUTEN FREE!!!

And yes, this might all sound too good to be true at this point… but I promise you that it’s 100% real and 1000% fabulous, and in this blog post, I’ll take you through the whole process of making it step by step.

Another great thing is that you don’t need to use frozen butter for this recipe – and that’s really a huge plus in my book (mostly because I usually forget to freeze the butter in time).

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I should add that there’s also an amazing gluten free (rough) puff pastry recipe in my gluten free cookbook, Baked to Perfection. However, I’m chronically incapable of not fiddling with my own recipes and if or when I find an even better (easier, quicker, more efficient) way of preparing something, I’ll always share it with you. So, here we are.

Finally, before we get to the technical bits of how to make this puff pastry: you can also use this recipe as an *even flakier* alternative to my Extra Flaky All-Butter Gluten Free Pie Crust. Both recipes are great, so just choose whichever one you fancy more at the time.

Before we get to the bits and bobs of making this amazing gluten free puff pastry – if you like what you’re seeing, subscribe to my newsletter to keep up to date on the latest recipes and tips!

Easy Gluten Free Puff Pastry Dough

Note: the whole recipe, including the ingredient quantities, can be found at the bottom of this page – just scroll down to the bottom, or click the ‘Jump to Recipe’ button at the top of this post.

The next step is to chill the puff pastry dough in the fridge for about 30 minutes. This cools down the butter in the dough and firms it up, so that it won’t melt into the surrounding dough during the laminating process.

In the photo below, you can clearly see that the dough looks marbled – with distinct yellow-ish patches of butter among the off-white pastry. That’s a great sign, as it means that the butter sheets haven’t melted into the surrounding dough.

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These pieces of butter in the pastry are very important – this is what will form all the butter-dough layers during the laminating step, and those layers are what gives the puff pastry its flakiness and what allows it to puff up in the oven during baking.

Lamination: two letter foldsLamination is the process that creates all those lovely butter-dough layers that are responsible for the puff pastry being deliciously flaky and puffing up during baking.

If your puff pastry dough has been in the fridge for longer than 30 minutes, leave it out on the counter at room temperature for a few minutes. You want the dough to be cool but not so cold that it’s hard as a rock. It should be pliable and malleable enough so that you can roll it out without too much cracking.

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This lamination consists of two letter folds, where you fold the pastry rectangle as you would a letter – one third towards the middle and then the other third over it.

You can make the gluten free puff pastry ahead of time (including the lamination) and then wrap it tightly in cling film and keep it in the the fridge or freezer until needed. I don’t recommend freezing the pastry before the laminating step.

It keeps in the fridge for about 1 week and in the freezer for up to about 1 month. When you want to use it, allow it to thaw at room temperature before using. If you press down on it with a finger, it should leave an indentation – but it should feel firm, not too soft to the touch.

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I recommend baking the gluten free puff pastry at oven temperatures at or above 400ºF (200ºC) – this will ensure that it puffs up beautifully without any butter leakage.

For example, I pre-heated the oven to 425ºF (220ºC) and then reduced the temperature 400ºF (200ºC) immediately after putting the puff pastry sheets into the oven. And as you can see, this gave the most perfectly flaky, puffy results:

As the gluten free puff pastry enters the oven, the butter in the butter layers melts and the moisture content in the butter turns into steam, which forces the dough layers apart – and the pastry puffs up. (Butter contains about 15% of water by weight.)

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You can, of course, also “compress” the puff pastry during baking – for example, by placing another baking sheet on top of it. This prevents it from puffing up and results in these ultra-flaky sheets of golden puff pastry, which are perfect for making mille-feuille or vanilla slices:

And that’s it! This is just about everything you need to know in order to make this truly outstanding gluten free puff pastry. It’s a total game changer and I promise you that it’s impossible to tell that it’s gluten free.

And I’m so excited to welcome you to The Loopy Whisk, where we’re all aboutfeel good recipes that make living with food allergies and dietary requirements easy as cake! (And there’s a lot of cake round these parts.)

Easy Gluten Free Puff Pastry

And I’m so glad to welcome you to The Loopy Whisk, where we’re all about feel good recipes that make living with food allergies and dietary requirements easy as cake! (And there’s a lot of cake round these parts.) I’m happiest in the kitchen and behind the camera, bringing my allergy friendly dreams to life, and sharing them with you.This post may contain affiliate links for which I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. For more info, check out my Disclosure Policy. Thank you for your support!

That's right, with a few tweaks this has now become my failsafe gluten free puff pastry recipe for sweet and savoury recipes.

It's an easy gluten free rough puff pastry recipe and I am going to show you, with step-by-step photos and a video - exactly how to make it!

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You may have seen this on Bake Off, with bakers talking about how they're making a 'rough puff' instead of traditional puff pastry.

In short, 'proper' puff pastry is made when you place a flattened block of butter in the middle of the pastry and then fold it into the layers.

You simply ensure there are lumps of butter throughout the pastry dough, so when you fold the layers, this marbles through the pastry.

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This creates a gorgeously flaky pastry - the perfect kind for sausage rolls, apple turnovers, cheese straws and even Greggs-style steak bakes.

It's also very easy to do and requires very little technical skill - if you have a rolling pin, you can do it!

I always use either the FREEE or Asda gluten free plain flour but any plain (or all purpose) gluten free flour blend should work.

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In fact, if it's really cold you may even be able to do the whole thing without having to stop and refrigerate the dough once.

But as soon as it starts to warm up, you'll need to chill the pastry in the fridge (or freezer, if you're keen to save time).

This way it'll stay super cold and you won't need to worry about losing those layers you're working so hard to create.

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So if it's a warm day, prepare to have lots of pauses to chill your dough between folds. Trust me, it'll be worth it!

Don't forget there is a full, printable recipe card down below but I will also go through each stage of making gluten free puff pastry here.

The first stage of making this gluten free puff pastry is actually not too dissimilar to making my gluten free shortcrust pastry.

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Next, take your butter straight from the fridge (remember, cold is key here!) and cut it into cubes, approximately