Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!
October 13, 2007 by glutenfreesoxfan
Some people who are gluten free are perfectly happy never eating things like bread and pasta and pizza (and I’m speaking of the GF versions, of course). Others, like me, like some of that comfort food every once in a while. I’ve always liked home made pizza and have now tried making this several times since becoming GF. Sometimes it works better than others. I found a great recipe on Naomi Poe’s site “Gluten Free, not Gluten-Freaky.” The first time I made it, it was a great consistency and -almost- perfect. I found it just a little too sweet. So I started tinkering, changing amounts of sugar, changing types of flour, etc. I think this was my mistake. I probably should have just added a bit more salt to the original recipe and left the rest alone. What follows is her original recipe (which can be found here). My recommendation would be to add just a bit more salt.
However, as I think about it, one other problem may have been the amount of time I let it rise. I’m not sure I gave it enough time to rise (thus giving the yeast time to “eat” the sugar).
Obviously, you can top this with what ever you choose. Mine is topped with sauce (Classico spaghetti sauce); mixed italian cheese; italian sausage; and herbs.
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups Rice flour (brown rice flour works really well here)
1 1/4 cups tapioca flour
1 Tbsp xanthan gum
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp dry milk powder (or nondairy substitute)
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp yeast
4 egg whites
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp vinegar
1 ½ c warm water
Directions:
Put the egg whites, oil, vinegar, and water in the bowl of your mixer and blend. In a medium bowl, whisk together the other ingredients. With mixer turned to low, add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Turn beater to high and beat for 3 minutes. It will be the consistency of thick cake batter.
Line cookie sheets/baking stones with parchment paper. Spoon out the pizza crust batter and spread to desired thickness and size on parchment paper.
(I just put the parchment paper on the counter because I have one of those big pizza paddles for transferring it to the pizza stone which I pre-heat in the oven.)
(The batter is enough to make about three 12″ pizzas, but you might want to make different sizes. They are great for partially baking and then freezing.)
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Slide your pizza crusts onto a baking sheet. Let the crust rise about 10 minutes. Place in the oven for 10 minutes. Take out of the oven and spread with sauce. Place back into the oven for 10 minutes. Take out of the oven and Top with toppings and cheese. Reduce heat to 350 degrees. Place back into the oven for about 5 minutes. Remove from oven, slice, and serve!
*watch the times - I’ve found that they really don’t take this long.
Freezing extra crusts:
If you want to freeze crusts for future use, bake crust at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cool completely, then wrap individually in plastic wrap. To cook after it has been frozen, put pizza crust on baking sheet. Top with sauce. Bake for 10 minutes. Add cheese and toppings. Bake 5 to 10 more minutes. Again, it may won’t take this long to cook - check frequently.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I do! It’s great fresh, but it’s even better to have a crust in the freezer for those nights when you just don’t really feel like cooking. On nights like that, you can still have a great dinner ready in about 20 minutes with very little effort.
YUM Karen!!!! You’re right!! That looks incredible! I’ll have to try that next weekend for a pizza night! Where did you buy that wooden thing to slide the dough onto the warmed pizza stone? I have a stone, but I’ve never thought to preheat it, I bet that makes a much better crust! Interesting!! Thanks for the great post!
Carrie - Thanks for the comment. The pizza paddle-thing does make it a lot easier, particularly when spreading out this batter on parchment paper. I bought it at a cooking store for about $15. Most cook shops have them. I think even places like Bed, Bath & Beyond or Linens & Things might have them.
OMG… cheesy goodness! OH! I love pizza!
These are great pictures. I especially like that you have step by step pictures of the dough process. It’s hard for new Gluten-free eaters to see the dough in the bowl and how different it is from gluten doughs. LOL. I remember the first time we made pizza dough around here - I thought I needed to add more flour because it didn’t look anything like what we expected. LOL
=)
Kate
Kate - I did the exact same thing the first time I tried to make pizza from a mix! lol! I kept adding flour until it made a “dough” that looked right. needless to say, it turned out terribly. Naomi’s site (that I linked to) was amazingly helpful.
This looks so good. I have been a grump all weekend, and I want to order pizza (not that I would, but I am sure you can relate to the mood!) and kick back. I might actually get up now and make this.
Mrs. GF - That’s why I love this dough recipe - I can make several crusts at once and stick a couple in the freezer. Then when I’m in one of those moods, it’s not much harder than ordering out. Just have some tomato sauce and cheese on hand. Actually you can assemble the whole pizza on the partially cooked crust, then freeze the whole thing.
Karen, did you have trouble spreading the dough onto the wax paper? My dough didn’t seem to want to spread very well. Also did you grease the wax paper at all? My crusts stuck like crazy to the wax paper… not to mention apparently I used too much wax paper, when I put the dough in the preheated oven because it was smoking up the kitchen! LOL It was definitely an experimental pizza night. Did I do anything wrong? Or is it just a finicky dough??
PS… Despite all that stuff, the crust was awesome! Michael said, he thought it wasn’t going to be good, but he ate 4 pieces and said it was awesome and worth the trouble!
Carrie - Oh no! Sorry you had so much trouble. You can’t use WAX paper, you have to use PARCHMENT paper. Wax paper shouldn’t go in the oven. Otherwise you get lots of smoke and then wax stuck to your food. Parchment, on the other hand, is great for baking on because nothing will stick to it. (I bake cookies, bread, everything on it.)
As for spreading the “dough”, it should be like thick cake batter. On the parchment paper, it spreads okay, but you do have to hold the paper flat with one hand so it doesn’t bunch up. That’s what takes practice.
You know Karen… I JUST realized that (about using parchment NOT wax paper!!) when I was reading another post… I feel like such an idiot! LOLOLOL… you should have seen my kitchen up in smoke from that wax paper… LOL Yeah, it’s pretty funny now!
I will check for parchment paper at Food Lion today. I wish I had pictures of my smoke filled kitchen to post on my blog, but I’ll wait until I have a great experience with your pizza crust to do that! I feel so silly!!
hey - at least it tasted good! that’s the important part! and don’t feel bad - I’ve set off my smoke detectors more times than I care to count. lol!
I thought sausage had gluten in it. Am I wrong?
Ellen
Ellen - not all sausage has gluten in it. It’s one of those that you have to check each kind.
For example, most Johnsonville sausages are fine, including their italian sausage and regular bratwurst. Their website has a list.
If you live in the South, Carolina Pride is another brand that has GF sausage.
I use a dough recipe very similar to this one and I make 3 pizzas at a time. I prebake the dough for the 10 minutes, let it cool and then top with sauce, cheese and toppings. Then I freeze them individually. When my DH wants pizza, I just have to pull one out and cook it, frozen, for about 15 minutes at 400! Just like regular frozen in the freezer. He can’t tell the difference between frozen and fresh.
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Hi guys,
The pizza paddle thingy is actually called a pizza peel.
I work in a kitchen shop and we sell them all the time. Just ask for one at any decent kitchen store and they’ll know exactly what you mean. Makes pizza making easier - and it makes you look like a pizzeria pro!
Take care,
Christina aka The Happy Slob Housecleaner
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