It took us years to perfect our wheaty pizza crust. It was an amalgamation of various recipes and techniques, tweaked over the years to finally become our perfect crust. I could make it in my sleep. It always turned out great.
Then I found out I'm allergic to wheat.
Not about to give up pizza, I set about finding a new favorite pizza crust - one that I could eat without risking an inflammatory response. First I tried some mixes, but they were not satisfying. First of all, it was really hard to find one that didn't include other grains to which I am allergic (i.e. corn). Secondly, there is a tendency to include garbanzo bean flour, and I don't care for the taste (or gumminess) that it contributes. So I turned my sights toward making a crust from scratch, just as I'd done with our previous favorite.
Enter (you guessed it!) Gluten Free Girl & The Chef's pizza crust. It wasn't completely Arya-safe, because they use corn flour and corn starch. Shauna offered suggestions for alternatives, though, and I've been playing with it since.
We had pizza for Christmas dinner. My brother and his wife were here visiting, and we wanted to make something delicious that everyone could hang out in the kitchen and help prepare, and that would satisfy my need to avoid gluten, corn, and excessive dairy (I make an occasional exception for a bit of cheese on my 'za) and their need for it to be vegetarian. They were two of the best pizzas we've had, and my sister-in-law wanted the crust recipe!
Hints & Notes:
- One of the first things to know is that this crust comes together quickly, but there are some things that are best done in order (noted in the recipe).
- Also, while it has yeast and does need to rest, don't expect it to puff up. rise, and become elastic like a wheaty dough would.
- Make sure you have plenty of parchment paper on hand. I have found that I need to roll it out between two sheets, flipping occasionally in order to peel the paper off of the dough. Otherwise, the parchment works itself into the wrinkles in the underside of the dough and can get cooked into the crust. It's a real pain to try to peel off after baking, so I figured out the above method. Yesterday I learned that if, before baking, the parchment feels damp I should just go ahead and flip the crust onto a fresh sheet before baking. The damp parchment stuck to the underside of the crust during baking, essentially steaming onto the crust. Not the end of the world, but certainly annoying.
- You can swap out the flour below for an equal weight of all-purpose gf flour mix, but the results will vary depending on what's in your mix.
Gluten-, Corn-, and Dairy-free Pizza Crust
Ingredients:
125 g Millet Flour
125 g Arrowroot Powder
125 g Sweet Rice Flour
125 g Potato Starch
1 ½ tsp Kosher Salt
1 cup warm water, start with ½ cup
¼ cup Olive Oil
2 packets Yeast
1 Tbsp Ground Flax Seeds, plus 2 tbsp just-boiled water
Directions:
Preheat your oven, with a pizza stone if you have one, to 450 F.
Start by making the flax slurry. While the water is boiling, go ahead and mix the 1/2 cup warm water, 1/4 cup olive oil, and 2 packs of yeast in a measuring cup. Once the water boils, swiftly stir 2 tablespoons into the tablespoon of flax meal. Set aside.
Mix the flours and salt in the mixer. Add the flax goo and let the mixer stir it in. Add the yeasty oil & water, pouring slowly with the mixer on. Add another 1/2 cup or so of water (depends on the humidity of your kitchen, so don't get too hung up on the numbers), stopping when the dough comes together in a ball around the paddle but before it starts to get too sticky/wet.
Leave the dough in the mixing bowl, cover with a towel and set aside for an hour or more. I have left it for longer with no bad outcomes. Note that the dough looks spongy after resting.
Divide the dough in half. I freeze half for next week's pizza night*. Form the dough into a ball and pat it into a circle on a piece of parchment. Cover with the second piece of parchment and use your rolling pin to roll it out into your preferred pizza shape (we like roughly circular). Keep rolling until you get it as thin as you like.
Since the oven is so hot, I like to trim the extra parchment so that it doesn't scorch in the oven. Consider doing the flipping/peeling technique described above. Brush olive oil on your crust, and when you're ready slide the parchment with the dough on it onto your pizza stone (a rimless cookie sheet works great for this transfer from countertop to oven).
Bake for 8 - 10 minutes. We like a crunchy-bottomed crust, so we generally bake for 10 minutes. Our crust always bubbles a lot, and sometimes tries to curl up. I don't worry about popping the bubbles, as they never get very big.
When pre-baked to your satisfaction, pull out (use the cookie sheet) and decorate.
Here's what we topped ours with this Christmas: tomato sauce (the less salt kind) sprinkled with oregano, salt, and garlic powder. sliced shitake mushrooms, chopped kalamata olives, sliced marinated sundried tomatoes from PCC (so good!), pepperoni (Applegate Farms makes a good one, we cut the rounds into quarters so that it gets crispier in the oven) and a light sprinkling of shredded mozzarella. The baking brings out the sweetness of the sundried tomatoes, so you might want to salt to taste once your pizza is plated. My brother and his wife had the same sauce & herbs, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, olives, cheese, and some spinach and lettuce from our salad mix (yum!).
Slide the decorated pizza back into the oven. I like to keep it on the cookie sheet now, so that the bottom of the crust doesn't get overcooked or scorched by the pizza stone. Bake until things are bubbly and toasted, or to your preference. We eventually switched to the broiler, which browned up our cheese perfectly!
* We also freeze our extra pepperoni and cheese. Just pull everything out to thaw on the counter (or in the fridge, depending on your climate) around lunchtime of the day you want pizza for dinner. Prepare the pizza as usual.
Please consider spending some time perusing the Gluten Free Girl and The Chef website for recipe ideas. Even though I have more food intolerances than she does, it has been easy to adjust her recipes for my needs - especially since she switched to ratio baking (thanks, Shauna!).