Day One: Making the Dough

1. Check the expiry date of your yeast, if it’s expired, stop now and get a new package! If it’s still good, place the yeast and the brown sugar in the bottom of a large bowl. warm up your milk (to 100-110 degrees). Add the milk to the yeast and sugar and give it a gentle stir with a fork. Leave it be for about 5 minutes.
   If the yeast is still alive, it will create foam on the surface of the milk. If, after about 5 minutes, you don’t see a good amount of foam, your yeast is dead and you need to start again.
2. Next, add the flour, xanthan gum, and salt. I normally measure these out while the yeast is proofing and dump it all in together. Take a wooden spoon and stir the mixture until it comes together into a ball. If it’s still really sticky, add a sprinkle or two of flour until it is “sticky” but doesn’t “stick to you.” You can use up to 3.5 cups of flour to get the right consistency.
3. Turn your dough out onto a countertop dusted with flour or covered with wax paper. Knead the dough for a few minutes. It should get soft but still be a little sticky. Once it has reached the consistency of bread dough, roll it out into a rectangle about 1.5″ thick. Put it in a large ziplock bag and refrigerate it for an hour.

Laminating the Dough

1. Before you take your dough out of the fridge, you need to get your butter ready. Cut your butter into three equally sized pieces and arrange them side by side. Pound and roll out the butter until it makes an 8 by 5″ rectangle. Then take your dough out of the fridge and carefully remove it from the bag (you want to keep that). Sprinkle some flour on your workspace, then roll out the dough into a 16 by 10″ rectangle. Place the butter in the middle of the rectangle and fold the long pieces over the butter (like you’re folding a letter).
2. Brush off any excess flour, then turn the dough around so the shortest side is facing you (so you’re rolling the opposite way you did the first time). Roll the dough out in another 16 by 10″ rectangle and fold it up into thirds like a letter. This the first fold. Put your dough back into your ziplock bag and stick it back into the fridge for another hour.
3. Once the hour is completed, pull it out and turn it so the short side is facing you, then roll it out to 16 by 10″ and fold/refrigerate again. You’re going to do this four more times. ☐☐☐☐ Check them off so you don’t forget!
4. Once you’ve finished your final fold (fold number 5), let your dough relax in the fridge overnight.

Day Two: Making the Croissants

1. First, cut the dough in half. If you’re only planning on making half of the recipe, wrap one half and pop it in the freezer now. If you’re making both portions, roll each half into a long rectangle about 1/4″ thick. Then cut each rectangle into 6 triangles (I use a pizza cutter for this).
2. Take one triangle at a time and roll it from the wide part up to make it a little longer. Sometimes it helps if you gently pull on the top of the triangle to stretch it a little further. Then make a little cut (about an inch) in the center of the wide part of the triangle. This will make two little legs. Roll each leg from the center toward the edge of the triangle, then keep rolling up toward the top of the triangle. This will make the tell-tale layers of the croissant. Place the croissant on an ungreased baking sheet. Repeat for all triangles, then let them sit on the counter for 1-2 hours. They may rise a little.
3. After an hour, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Lightly beat one egg and brush each croissant, then put the tray in the oven and cook for 12 minutes. After 12 minutes, lower the temperature to 375 degrees and cook for another 8-12 minutes (until the tops are golden). Let the croissants cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or store in an airtight container at room temperature.