Gluten Free Danish Pastry (Pain aux Raisins)

This gluten free Danish pastry is the real deal – perfectly flaky and buttery, with a wonderful lamination, and generously filled with vanilla pastry cream and plump, juicy sultanas. It has the characteristic swirl shape of a proper pain aux raisins with gorgeous caramelised edges. While it does require a few steps to make, it’s not overly complicated – and the end result is just incredibly delicious. You couldn’t possibly guess that it’s gluten free!

This recipe has been at the top of my to-to list for months, if not years. I’ve made numerous iterations of it – some were dismal failures that headed straight into the bin, some were almost-successes that pointed me in the right direction.

And now, after so many recipe variations (I’ve honestly lost count), I can finally, finally share with you the recipe for a truly fabulous gluten free Danish pastry.

Specifically, we’ll be talking about gluten free pain aux raisins, also known as “raisin swirl pastry” or “raisin whirls” or just “snails” as I used to call them growing up in Slovenia. This is a childhood favourite and I seriously couldn’t be more thrilled to share with you this gluten free twist on such a delicious classic.

This gluten free Danish pastry recipe honestly ticks all the boxes:

• It’s wonderfully flaky, with distinct layers. It really has a great degree of lamination, and when you tear it apart, you can see the individual layers clearly, as befitting a great Danish pastry. The outer crust is pleasantly crisp without being hard, and the pastry as a whole is soft and rich.
• It has a wonderful buttery flavour. It has that wholly unique taste, specific to Danish pastry and croissants. Even though it’s gluten free, the flavour is incredibly close to that of a wheat-based pastry.
• The filling of vanilla pastry cream and plum, juicy sultanas is just spectacular. I like my pastries packed with filling, and these are certainly very generous on that front. The pastry as a whole isn’t too sweet, but you can easily tweak the sweetness further by adjusting the amount of sugar in the pastry cream, or by adding an apricot jam or sugar syrup glaze.
• It has that characteristic swirl shape, with gorgeous caramelised edges.
• It’s surprisingly easy to make. It only requires two rounds of folding (to achieve the lamination or flakiness) and only a single round of proofing. And so long as you get the chilling times (and thus the texture of the butter in the dough) just right, there’s very little that can go wrong. Just follow the recipe to the letter, and the most perfect gluten free Danish pastry is within your reach.

I know I say this for most of my gluten free bakes, but it’s truly very difficult to guess that these Danish pastries are gluten free at all. Especially when they’re still warm out of the oven, and you bite into them and encounter that wonderful buttery flakiness alongside the creaminess of the filling… they’re just incredibly delicious.

Before we get to the bits and bobs of making these wonderful pastries – if you like what you’re seeing, subscribe to my newsletter to keep up to date on the latest recipes and tips!

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.

Making the gluten free dough

First, you’ll need to make the base gluten free dough. It’s an enriched, brioche-type dough but without any butter – the butter will be incorporated later on in the form of the butter block in the laminating step.

While many Danish pastry recipes (especially wheat-based ones) do call for butter in the actual dough, I’ve found that omitting the butter helps to make the dough much easier to handle and work with. What’s more, the lack of butter in the dough seems to result in a better lamination – that is, in more distinct butter-dough layers in the final Danish pastry!

Making this dough is all about getting just the right balance of firmness and softness: you want the dough to be firm enough to easily roll it out and laminate with the butter, but also soft enough so it can expand and rise both during the proofing step and when it first enters the oven.

Here’s what the dough looks like just before rolling:

You’ll notice that in the ingredients list, I tell you to use COLD milk, water and egg yolks in the dough. Now, this might be slightly counterintuitive, as most yeasted dough recipes (like my gluten free artisan bread, gluten free seeded loaf or gluten free hot cross buns) ask for warm or room temperature ingredients, so as to kick-start the yeast action and get the dough proofing ASAP.

Here, however, we want the dough to be as cold as possible for two reasons:

• Firstly, working with cold dough will prevent the butter block from warming up too quickly during the next laminating step.
• Secondly, we don’t want the dough to start proofing straight away. Instead, we want to delay the proofing until after the lamination is done and we’ve shaped the Danish pastries.

In fact, many Danish pastry (or croissant) recipes ask you to make the dough and then chill it in the fridge overnight. Well, I’m a rather impatient person and using cold milk, water and egg yolks in the dough is a great shortcut to skip this initial refrigeration step.

The butter block

Much like with the enriched dough, I like to make the butter block in the easiest way possible – while still ensuring that it gives the most delicious (and flakiest) end result.

1. Start with cold butter, straight from the fridge.
2. Cut it into slices and arrange it in the middle of a large piece of baking/greaseproof/parchment paper, in an approximately square shape.
3. Fold all four sides of the baking paper over the butter, so that you get an approximately 8 inch (20cm) baking paper square that completely encloses the butter.
4. Flip it over, so that the baking paper folds point downwards, and firmly hit the butter with a rolling pin. Make sure to hit it with the rolling pin all over and in all directions. The friction from being hit with the rolling pin will slightly soften the butter and make it more malleable/pliable, without melting it.
5. Once slightly softened, roll the rolling pin firmly over the butter block, so that you get the butter into all the edges and corners of the baking paper square. Make sure that the butter is of an even thickness all over.

At the end, you should be left with an 8 inch (20cm) butter block that’s fairly malleable/pliable (you should be able to gently bend it) without being too soft or squidgy. If your kitchen is very warm, you can chill it briefly in the fridge for about 5 minutes, but you don’t want it to firm up too much. (I didn’t need to chill it at all, and my kitchen was at a pleasant 70ºF (20ºC)).

Now, we’re ready to proceed to the lamination step.

Laminating gluten free Danish pastry: first book fold

Here’s how you laminate gluten free Danish pastry:

1. Lightly flour your work surface. I like to work on a large piece of baking/greaseproof/parchment paper, as this allows me to slide the dough onto a baking sheet and into the fridge at any point, if the dough feels too warm or too soft. I recommend you do the same, especially if this is your first time making gluten free Danish pastry (and also if your kitchen is on the warmer side).
2. Place the dough onto the floured surface and sprinkle its top with flour.
3. Roll it out into an approximately 8×16 inch (20x40cm) rectangle, so that the shorter side is closest to you.
4. Test whether the butter block fits comfortably onto the rolled-out dough. The dough should be a few millimetres wider than the butter block, but not by much.
5. Once you’re happy with the size of the dough, place the butter block on one half of the dough and peel away the baking paper.
6. Fold the other half of the dough over the butter block, end to end, enclosing it completely.
7. Turn the dough by 90 degrees, so that the two opposite “open ends” of the pastry point towards and away from you.
8. Use the rolling pin to gently “tap” the pastry all over – that is, gently press down on the pastry with the rolling pin at regular intervals along the length of the dough. This will ensure that the butter block adheres well to the dough and that it rolls out evenly together with the dough, rather than in uneven patches.
9. Roll out the dough into an approximately 8×22 inch (20x55cm) rectangle. This doesn’t have to be very precise, you just want to make sure that the rectangle is long enough to easily make the book fold (see bullet points #11-14).
10. While you’re rolling, make sure that the dough isn’t stuck to the surface, by sliding your hands under it and gently lifting it up.
11. Fold one end of the dough rectangle towards the middle.
12. If needed, use a pastry brush to remove any excess flour.
13. Fold the other end of the dough rectangle towards the middle. That is, at this point, you should have the two ends of the rectangle folded inwards towards the middle, so that they meet in the centre.
14. Fold this new rectangle in half (along the centre line), as if closing a thick book.
15. You’ve just made a book fold!
16. Wrap the pastry in cling film and chill in the fridge for 20-30 minutes. Don’t chill it for any longer than that – if you do, the butter will firm up too much and will break when you roll out the pastry in the next step.

Laminating gluten free Danish pastry: second book fold

The second fold is essentially a repeat of the first fold:

1. Position the pastry so that the two “open ends” point towards and away from you.
2. Tap the dough gently with the rolling pin, then roll it out into an approximately 8×22 inch (20x55cm) rectangle. Make sure that the pastry doesn’t stick to the surface.
3. Fold both ends of the pastry rectangle towards the middle, then fold the resulting rectangle in half.
4. Chill in the fridge for 20-30 minutes.

Shaping and filling gluten free Danish pastry (pain aux raisins)

Here’s how you assemble gluten free pain aux raisins:

1. Roll out the pastry until it’s slightly larger than 10×16 inch (25x40cm), then trim it down to a 10×16 inch (25x40cm) rectangle. It should be about 1/3 inch (8mm) thick. Dollop the cooled vanilla pastry cream on top,
2. and smooth it out into an even layer all the way to the edges.
3. Sprinkle evenly with the sultanas or raisins.
4. With the pastry positioned so that that the shorter side is closest to you, roll the pastry towards you.
5. You will end up with an approximately 10 inch (25cm) long log.
6. You can use the baking paper to help you with rolling, if needed.

At this point, if the pastry feels too warm or too soft, you can chill it in the fridge for 20-30 minutes. Otherwise, you can go ahead and divide the pastry log into individual portions.

1. You want each slice to measure about 1 inch (2.5cm) in thickness – I like to measure that out fairly precisely with a ruler.
2. Use baker’s thread or unflavoured dental floss to cut the individual pastries. Much like with cinnamon rolls, this preserves their shape and ensures that you’ll get the most beautiful swirl. (Using a knife, on the other hand, would likely squash the pastry.)
3. I like to fold the end of each pastry swirl underneath the pastry – this prevents the end of the pastry from unfurling during baking.
4. Finally, place the individual Danish pastries onto a lined baking sheet. You want to space them out, as they will spread (especially in the oven, more on that below). This recipe makes 10 pastries in total, I like to bake them 5 per baking sheet.

As a side note, you can roll out the dough into a differently sized rectangle and then roll it up into a thinner or fatter/thicker log, depending on whether you prefer smaller or larger Danish pastries, respectively.

Proofing and baking gluten free Danish pastry

So, now that our Danish pastries are shaped, it’s time to proof and bake them.

1. As mentioned above, make sure that you leave enough space between the pastries for them to expand (ideally around 2 inches/5cm).
2. Now, the pastries will actually expand only minimally during proofing – as you can see going from photo #1 to photo #2 below, the pastries definitely don’t double in size, they just puff up very slightly (and that’s after about 2 hours of proofing). The major expansion actually happens in the oven – more on that below.
3. Once the pastries are proofed, egg wash them all over – make sure to egg wash both the tops and the sides.
4. And then, it’s time to bake them! Once they hit the hot oven, the pastries really expand quite drastically. That’s because as they encounter the high temperature of the oven, the water content in the butter layers rapidly evaporates to form steam, which forces the dough layers apart. At the same time, the yeast in the dough has its last burst of activity before the heat of the oven destroys it (this is called oven spring).

My method of baking these gluten free Danish pastries is optimised to give the maximum amount of flakiness. That’s why I like to start baking my pastries at a relatively high temperature of 430ºF (220ºC). After about 5 minutes, I decrease the temperature to 350ºF (180ºC), which allows them to fully bake through without the tops browning too quickly.

Note: Because these Danish pastries don’t contain gluten (which means that the dough/pastry is far less elastic), what can sometimes happen is that the pastries can split apart in random places. If that happens, it’s really not the end of the world. Immediately out of the oven, while the pastry is still hot, gently press the two ends of the split together to bring the pastry back to its original round shape. It might have a slightly more rustic appearance, but it will be just as pretty and just as delicious.

What can go wrong: troubleshooting

If you follow the recipe to the letter, there honestly aren’t many things that can go wrong with this recipe.

The only problems you can really run into is misjudging the butter temperature in the dough, in one of two ways:

1. Your butter is too cold and hard. This could be because your original butter block was too cold, or because you’ve left your laminated dough too long in the fridge (either after the first or after the second fold). If your butter is too cold, it will break during rolling and lamination, resulting in “shards” of butter in your dough, rather than even butter-dough layers. Such a pastry will probably have a poor rise, little flakiness and the butter is likely to leak significantly during baking, resulting in puddles of butter on your baking sheet.
2. Your butter is too warm and soft. This could be because your original butter block was too soft or because you took too long to roll out and fold your pastry (especially if your kitchen is super warm). If you butter is too warm, it will leak out during rolling and lamination, and it can get partially absorbed by the dough. This will result in a dense, heavy, brioche-like dough with little rise and no flakiness.

To avoid these butter problems, make sure that you read the recipe thoroughly and really follow the instructions. I’ve made sure to include lots of tips and advice in the recipe, to really help you achieve gluten free Danish pastry perfection.

Possible substitutions

Although all the ingredients in the recipe should be easily accessible either in your local grocery store or online, I still wanted to include a list of substitutions you can make.

• Instant yeast: You can use active dried yeast, in which case you’ll need to activate it beforehand. In this case, you will need to use warm milk with a teaspoon or so of sugar (as the yeast is difficult to activate in cold milk). You should still use cold water and cold egg yolks. Also, if using active dried yeast, you’ll need a sightly larger quantity than the one listed in the recipe due to the way in which it’s produced and processed, use about 10g.
• Psyllium husk: YOU CAN’T SUBSTITUTE IT WITH A DIFFERENT INGREDIENT. But if you use psyllium husk powder as opposed to the rough/whole husk form, use only 85% of the weight listed in the recipe.
• Xanthan gum: Just like with psyllium husk, YOU CAN’T SUBSTITUTE IT WITH A DIFFERENT INGREDIENT.
• Potato starch: You can use cornstarch (also known as cornflour in the UK), tapioca starch or arrowroot starch instead.
• Brown rice flour: You can use millet flour instead.
• Sorghum flour: You can use white teff flour, buckwheat flour or gluten free oat flour instead.

A note on measurements (tl;dr: if possible, use a scale)

While I’ve included the volume measurements (cups and spoons) in the recipe card below, if at all possible (and I really cannot overemphasise this): USE METRIC GRAM MEASUREMENTS IF YOU CAN.

They’re much more precise and produce more reliably delicious results. This is true for pretty much all of baking – a kitchen scale will invariably give better results than cups and tablespoons.

And… I think that just about covers it. This post ended up even longer than expected, but I hope that all the extra details and the step-by-step photos will help you on your gluten free Danish pastry journey.

While it might look overwhelming at the moment (I know I’ve probably overloaded you with information), the recipe actually isn’t super complicated once you get started. Plus, the results are just so incredibly delicious, it’s definitely worth a bit of extra effort.

I really hope you’ll love these gluten free Danish pastries as much as I do.

Happy baking!

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