Every now & then I'll make a Caesar salad for dinner (or lunch) for my family. It's a simple combination of lettuce, aioli, parmesan, bacon, egg & croutons. As none of my family are on a wheat free diet, I'll usually make the croutons by shallow frying wheat based bread pieces in a mixture of clarified butter (ghee) and oil. For some time it has been at the back of my mind to create a gluten free crouton with the same flavour and crunch as my wheat based ones - they are really delicious, ever so slightly sweet, buttery & crispy crunchy golden pillows.   

While I was developing my gluten free Zeppoli (Italian doughnuts) recipes, I discovered that some Zeppoli are made from deep fried choux pastry. I immediately wondered if I could deep fry my Yeasted GF Puff Pastry dough. My deep fryer was having a work out making different types of Zeppoli so I thought I may as well fry up some of my frozen puff pastry dough too.

Success :) - the fried pastry was delicious and eaten so quickly by family members (and that was using pastry that had been frozen for 18 months & had freezer burn!!!!). As soon as possible I fried up some freshly made yeasted puff pastry (I needed to wait for a coolish Summer day). The result......  

Deep fried Yeasted GF puff pastry is unbelievably delicious.

The croutons are...

ever so slightly sweet, buttery & crispy crunchy

golden pillows. 

:). 

My daughter said they taste better than my wheat based croutons.  
 

 Ingredients

Fresh (is best) or frozen Yeasted GF Puff Pastry dough - can be scraps

Oil for deep frying

 

Method

Put the oil into the deep fryer & turn it on to approximately 180 C.

Put some absorbent paper on a plate.  

Roll out the puff pastry dough to 3 mm thick.

Cut the pastry into 2 cm squares. 

Deep fry a batch of the squares until they are golden brown (approximately 2 - 3 minutes).

Put the fried pieces on the absorbent paper. 

Turn the oven on to 100 C. 

Line a baking tray with baking paper. 

Transfer the fried puff pieces to the baking tray & put the tray in the oven. 

Leave the pieces in the oven for approximately 1 hour. This will dry out the croutons & make them deliciously crunchy. I usually bring a couple of the croutons out every 20 mins, let them cool & then eat them to see if they are crunchy. Leave them in the oven for longer if they are not crunchy. 

Store the croutons in an air tight container. 

Simply enjoy!