I'm sure some of you have looked at my photos and thought "Oh my.. . . she needs photography classes!" I'm in no way a photographer and use a handy little digital and the lighting at our house isn't terrific. I do what I can and as you can see by the blue lighting bouncing off the wax paper it's usually early evening when I shoot the images. Also it's real hard to take the time to take finished product shots when everyone is so hungry and chopping at the bit for dinner! Over the past week I've been going through my images and ran across my gluten free pizza and realized I hadn't posted about it yet. I made this last month and remembered being so excited that the crust didn't crumble or flake--which is what the last handful of attempts have produced. In no way should pizza crust crumble, it's just not right or worth eating IMO.
Let me tell ya, Moe is extremely picky about crust and my past attempts only resulted in him eating 1 slice. Which would normally be upsetting to me but wasn't (I couldn't eat more than 1 slice either), trying to come up with good gluten free recipes is time consuming and frustrating and afterall we started our gluten free diets because of him. Oh I tried several gluten free recipes posted on blogs and on the web and none of them bothered to write that their wonderful crust would crumble and your pizza slice would fall apart (you know what I'm referring to). Nevermind trying the recipes that calls for 7 different kinds of flours and starches!
The challenge was on. After so many unsavory attempts of tweaking ingredients and methods, I was FINALLY (whew!) able to come up with a chewy thin(ish) crust. The key all along was putting cheese in the dough! Yes friends, I had experimented with some Pão de Queijo (Brazilian Cheese Bread); which by the way are pretty good, and wondered what adding some cheese would do to my crumbly pizza dough. Eureeka!! It works. We didn't stop eating it until every last chewy slice was gone. Ahhh the taste of success. The cheese helps bind everything together making for a nice elastic dough. I've only made this crust twice now (usually I don't post recipes until after I've made them numerous times), I'm making BBQ chicken pizza tonight and using up my rotisserie chicken and seeing what Monterrey jack cheese does to the crust. I'll post the results to that later.
Ingredients (this is for a large pizza 20"):
2 cups brown rice flour, plus 1/2 to 1 cup more for dusting & rolling
1 cup of potato starch
1 cup of tapioca starch
1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
3 teaspoons xantham gum
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon Knox unflavored gelatin
1 1/2 cups milk, warmed
1 egg, at room temperature
1 stick of butter, melted
1 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
olive oil for pan
corn meal for pan
Pizza Sauce (makes enough for 2 large pizzas):
1 can diced Italian tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
1 tablespoon oregono
1 tablespoon fresh basil
salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper or hot chili flakes (optional)
1 teaspoon garlic power (minced garlic would be great too)
Toppings (your choice, this is what I used):
1 1/2 cup Pizza sauce
pepperoni
1 1/2 cups Italian sausage, cooked and crumbled
3 cups of mozzarella, shredded or you can use fresh
mushrooms (optional)
Directions:
Pour warm milk (104 degrees) into bowl and add the yeast. Wait 10 minutes and allow yeast to proof. Pour ingredients into food processor or mixer. Add in the sugar, gelatin, warm (not hot) melted butter and mix. Add in the flour, starches, salt and xantham gum and pulse/mix for about 3 minutes.
Now add in the egg and pulse.
Add 1 cup of mozarella and mix for another 2 minutes.
Remove the gooey mess from the mixture/processor onto a floured work surface. Sprinkle some flour on top and using your hands, work into a ball. Prepare your pizza pan. I lay down a layer of wax paper because my pan has air holes in it. But if yours doesn't skip it. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil on the pan and spread it around to fully cover the top. Sprinkle with cornmeal until lightly coated. Plop the dough ball ontop of the pan and start rolling it out from middle to edge.
I sprinkled more flour ontop and used my hands and fingers to flatten the dough into the pan shape. Now cover it with a dishcloth and place on a warm surface like the stove top. Let it rest for about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350 and prebake the crust for 25 minutes.
Once the top is golden and toasty colored, check the bottom by gently lifting up an edge with a spatula or pizza cutter. Looks good? Okay take out of the oven and start spreading on your toppings.
Whip up the pizza sauce or use your own. Mix and spread.
I layer my pizza as follows: Sauce, half of the cheese, pepperoni, sausage, cheese, mushrooms or other veggies.
Since we already prebaked the crust it's important to turn up the oven temperature to at least 375 degrees for 15 minutes. Depending on how many toppings you used, you may have cook it longer, keep an eye on it after 15 minutes. If you think it's cooking too quickly on top, place aluminum foil loosely over the top of the pizza until it's finished baking.
Let's take a moment to look at that crust bottom. Isn't it nice? Firm, not flaky, no crumbles. Look pizza slice benders, you can bend your large slices again without it breaking. How awesome is your eating life right now? :)
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