Gluten Free Pizza

This is a recipe my family has been using and modifying for years. It's not "simple" to make because it takes some planning but I'll try and lay it out in logical order.

We've done a number of variations on this. Taco Pizza, Chicken BBQ, using shortening, using bacon grease all dependent on what we had in the house at the time. I'll give my thoughts on some of them.

This makes two 12 inch pizzas. Although we have made one really thick pizza from this recipe and it was still pretty good.

Sorry this took so long to put together, I've been promising this for a while and I was supposed to get it in for the Pizza contest. Life has a funny way of getting all complicated.

Step 1 Hang ups

Like I said, this isn't a "simple" recipe. There are some cooking techniques used beyond "throw it all in a bowl then cook it". If this is scary to you, try not to worry, even if you don't do them perfectly, you'll still come out with pretty decent pizza.

I will advocate the use of kitchen tools you may not have. If you don't have these tools you can still get by and I'll attempt to tell you how. We recently made pizza on a campfire with very few tools and it was still yummy.

Useful tools
Kitchen Thermometer - This is just for making sure your water is "lukewarm" +/- 110 degrees
Egg White Strainer - useful but not needed, for years I made this by cupping the yolk out with the shell.
Stand Mixer - You can use your arm and a spoon, I've just gotten lazy.
Convection Oven - like I said, we've done this on a campfire, but you will need a heat source of some kind.
Cast Iron Pizza Pan - These rock! but not needed.

Not Vegetarian
I will advocate the use of bacon grease in the making of this. Spectrum vegetable shortening is a good alternative. There are ingredients like milk and egg used in this recipe and can be substituted but I have no idea what the results will be like.

Comments

[cmcdonald4]

Which type of yeast works best - the quick yeast or the slow yeast, or does it not matter?

Has anyone tried substituting other things for the dry milk or the potato starch?

[EmmettO]

I use rapid rise breadmaker yeast. Um, I don't know if it would make a difference. (?)

The dry milk is important to balance the liquids. Now if you're allergic to milk, there is a substitute (that I can't remember at the moment) that we've used for our friends that are lactose intolerant. Let me know if you need that and I'll see if I can find out.

Substituting Potato Starch is doable with only minimal change if you use tapioca startch/flour. It just costs more that way.

[cmcdonald4]

Is the milk substitute DariFree? Btw, I really appreciate the thoroughness of this recipe. I can't wait to try it out. I've been looking for a decent gf flatbread I could use with dipping sauces, also want a tasty garlic bread option.

[EmmettO]

Yes, I'm pretty sure it's DariFree. Flatbread is reasonably easy to do, I used to make it all the time before commercial breads became more readily available. I would simply make pancakes without the sugar (or very very little sugar) and add spices and garlic. I would then cut them into wedges to break the visual association with pancakes. When hacking together food, it's often best to not show people how you came to your results so they only judge it based on taste and not on how they think something "should be" made.

If you have a breadmaker, this is our favorite bread recipe http://www.instructables.com/id/Gluten-Free-Living/step6/My-Breadmaker-Recipe/ which we have put garlic on and toasted on the broiler pan.

[pinkyrabbit]

Great! Thanks!

[EmmettO]

No problem, happy to share.

[fluffydragon]

mmm.. this looks really lovely, I'm going to try this. I haven't had a whole lot of luck even making gluten-free pizza dough at home, but I'll try your recipe at least once. The dough looks kind of thick at the end, is this supposed to be a thick crust pizza? Can you do a thin crust with this recipe?

[EmmettO]

Thick crust is the culture here. Not quite as thick as a Chicago Pizza but pretty thick. It's not easy to make the crust very thin although with some work it probably could be done.

[emit]

Thank you for your recipe .

My wife has to be gluten-free, so we found a product called Duinkerken. They have bread, muffins, cookies, pancakes, waffle, mixes. We really like it. They have a web sight and will deliver to your home, we buy it at the bulk barn, but Sobeys also has it in some stores. There web sight is

www.duinkerkenfoods.com

[EmmettO]

The parallels between us are truly bizarre. Is your username "to give off or cast rays"? because it could be pronounced close to mine "EmmettO". Also your choice in food company is very similar to the name of a local city and is located on Prince Edward Isle which is where my family is from. Also my wife is gluten intolerant.

None of that really means anything, it just struck me as a really odd string of coincidences. Anywho, We'll have to check out Duinkerken Foods. Thanks!

And you're welcome for the recipe.

[rapidprototyping]

I saw a guy in the line at goodwill buying a breadmaker just to mix dough with he paid just five dollars for the breadmaker I though that was good idea. I like canadian bacon pizza like tombstone pizza used to make have not seen it in the store lately. We also used to buy the mexican pizza it was on corn bread type dough with taco flavorings and spicey sauce. I also tried a pizza that has white meat sauce chicken and artichoke hearts I didnt think i'd like it but do. And that one cost twenty dollars for large pizza must be hugh profit maker there.

[G.O. Bluth]

If your truly going Gluten Free, a used bread maker is probably a bad idea, depending on how sensitive you are, and how strictly you keep GF, this could lead to several days of pain/discomfort.

Results may vary. I keep a very strict GF diet, so the slightest amount of Gluten causes me quite a bit of discomfort.

Remember: G is for Gluten, and Gluten = Good.

[G.O. Bluth]

Also, if you get your hands dripping wet with water, you can smooth out the dough with it sticking to your hands less. Haven't tried shortening/grease yet.

[EmmettO]

We worried about that too. We've gotten quite good at completely cleaning out used cooking items. It's not impossible to do just be very careful.

[EmmettO]

I'm not sure if a breadmaker would be able to mix this dough. I do have one and it can make gluten free bread (I got it for $10 at a yardsale, best $10 I ever spent) but it's starting to break because of the heavy dough. Corn bread taco pizza huh? I like corn bread every once in a while but I'm not so sure I'd like it for a pizza. Still maybe I'll try it.

[zanne101]

I think the cornmeal pizza dough is not "corn bread" dough. There is (was?) a great gourmet pizza company in San Francisco that used some cornmeal in their dough and it was fantastic. Of course their toppings were excellent too: roasted vegs, fresh cheeses, imported pancetta etc.
But the crust was outstanding and I intend to try and re-create it one of these days.
I'm also very envious of your Cuisinart. :-}

[PatrickNormandin]

Mmm! Delicious and healthy!

[DaPope]

Any idea what the nutritional values are for the crust? Rough estimate would be fine.

It certainly looks like a recipe that is a lot of work but has a big pay off!

[EmmettO]

I don't have that information compiled. I'd have to look up bacon grease. Still I wouldn't imagine it would be pretty. I'm not one to worry about nutritional values. My family seems to do everything wrong when it comes to food.