Before gluten became poison, we had pizza night every week. I spend months perfecting my recipe. It was tasty and light and easy to work with, and it was a very cool kids' birthday party activity. My heart broke a bit when I realized it was not feasible anymore, so I set to work pretty early on to find a pizza we could rely on. Wow, that was stressful. So many failures! Bad texture (I do not like eating blocks of gluey crust), too much prep work (sticky dough is a huge pain), and pre-baking the crusts made a simple dinner take way too long. Nothing was inedible, but nothing was worth doing twice.
I looked everywhere, and finally during a random trip to Whole Foods I found a baking issue of Living Without that had a master pizza dough recipe in it. It used a high-protein flour blend that was listed in the back of the issue, and it used easy to find flours. And best of all: no pre-baking! Just whip it up, lay it out on hot stones, top and bake. I spied my next pizza attempt.
While my Kitchen-Aid went to work on the dough and the stones heated, I crossed my fingers. I was thrilled with the firm, workable, non-sticky dough and how easy it was to roll out onto parchment. It was very strong, too, no random holes or stretching. As I slid the pizza-laden parchment onto the stones, I looked at my husband and said firmly, "That was way too easy. This better taste good!"
After a whole 12 minutes in the oven, they were done. Dinner had taken me all of 25 minutes to put together, with very little labor. Score.
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| Check it out. That is success on a pizza pan. |
And best of all, it tastes good. Not great, but good. Strong, tender-chewy, and worthy of tweaking to perfection! I'll be working on it over the next few weeks and when I get it right I will post a step-by-step recipe. For now, this is my version of the one that made the cut:
2 cups gluten free flour blend (I used this one)
1/2 cup chickpea flour
1/2 cup millet flour
3 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp salt
5 tsp yeast
1 1/3 cups warm water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sugar or honey
Preheat oven and pizza stones to 440*. Proof yeast in water with sugar until foamy.
Combine flours, salt, xanthan gum, and any desired seasoning in a stand mixer and blend. Add yeast and olive oil, and mix on medium heat for 3-5 minutes.
Roll out dough onto greased or floured parchment paper into 2 12-inch pizzas. Let rise 10 minutes if desired. Top and slide carefully onto hot stones and bake for 10-15 minutes. Slice and enjoy!
