French Toast Pizza - Reviving Gluten Free Leftovers

If you are a regular consumer of gluten free (GF) bread, muffins etc., I am sure that you have on occasion, experienced the disappointment of carbohydrate based GF leftovers... I am referring here to those foods based on recipes originally made with gluten, that in fact rely on the gluten for some of the great qualities texture and flavour of that food. Unwilling to give up entirely on some of those old familiar comfort foods, I substitute GF flours and other ingredients to recreate that gluten texture and flavour with varying degrees of success.

Pizza is one of those foods. Unwilling to never eat 'regular' pizza again, I have tried many different recipes over the years and have settled on one that I think is a pretty good substitute (recipe included below).

However, even made entirely from scratch, I find that in general reheated (carbohydrate in particular) GF leftovers, have a seriously degraded flavour when compared with fresh, and pizza is no exception.

Recently, the morning after a satisfying Friday night dinner of pretty convincing homemade GF pizza, I stared into the fridge at my leftovers and briefly reminisced about the satisfying taste of cold (gluten laden) pizza from my long ago past and thought, what might i do to make my GF pizza leftovers taste better?

French toast pizza is what i came up with. I know! weird, but it tastes pretty good.

Step 1: GF Pizza Recipe

In case you decide to start the night before and make your own GF pizza before moving on to the leftover Pizza French Toast in the morning, I am adding the GF Pizza dough recipe I use here (adapted from a Bob's Red Mill recipe).

It makes enough for 2 regular sized pizzas.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.

Ingredients:

2 TBSPs dry active bread machine yeast
1 1/3 c gluten free flour mix (Pamela’s artisan flour mix is good)
1 cup tapioca flour
4 TBSP milk powder
4 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ground oregano
2 tsp unflavoured gelatin
1 1/3 c warm water (tap)
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp cider vinegar
extra olive oil and medium coarse cornmeal for the pan
rice flour for spreading the dough on the pan with your hands.

I use an electric mixer to make my pizza dough – its fast and easy if you have one.

Mix pizza dough:

Add all the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl and blend until evenly mixed.

Mix wet ingredients together and then add them to the dry ingredients.

Beat on high for a few minutes until you get a uniform dough mixture – it’s usually a soft dough that’s a bit sticky (if it’s too dry add a bit more water, too sticky to work, with add more flour).

Prepare pizza pans:

Coat pans with olive oil. Pour a small amount in the middle of the pan and spread it evenly around the pan with a little bit of paper towel or a tissue. Sprinkle the surface with cornmeal tapping the pan to cover the whole surface. Tap off any excess not sticking to the oil (this adds some crunch to the crust and keeps it from sticking to the pan).

Divide the dough into two even pieces. Put one in the middle of each pizza pan and sprinkle liberally with white rice flour to keep the dough from sticking to your hands as you work it. Press the dough into the pan, gradually working it out to the edges until it evenly covers the pan. Make a thicker edge around the outside of the crust. Repeat for the second ball of dough.

Pre-bake crust:

Pre-bake pizza crusts for approximately ten minutes at 450 degrees F (no toppings or sauce yet).

Add sauce, toppings and bake your pizza:

Take your pizza crusts out of the oven, add a layer of sauce and pile on your toppings.

Put the pizzas back into the oven and bake them for 20-25 minutes more, until they look and smell ready.

Enjoy, but not too much, since you need leftovers to make Pizza French Toast!

Step 2: Ingredients and Equipment

1/2 c milk approx.
1 egg
butter
salt and pepper
cayenne, onion or garlic powder (optional)
2 slices leftover gluten free pizza
bowl for mixing
container big enough to soak a pizza slice
fork (immersion blender if you have one)
flipper
fry pan
optional: salsa and or chili sauce condiments

Step 3: Mix Up Your Ingredients

This is a really simple recipe. Crack the egg(s) into the bowl. Add milk, salt and pepper and beat with a fork (or immersions blender) until the mixture is a uniform yellow.

Add cayenne and onion or garlic powder to the mixture if you want to spice it up a bit.

If you have more leftover pizza, just increase the amounts of milk and egg.

Step 4: Soaking the Pizza

Once you have your egg mixture ready, pour it into a container that will hold one slice of pizza. Make sure your container is not too big, since you want the egg mixture to be as deep as possible.

Put a pizza slice into the mixture and leave it to soak for a few minutes. Flip it over and soak the other side for a few more minutes.

You are aiming to saturate the crust part of the pizza, without it falling apart and the toppings falling off!

Step 5: Cooking the Toast

Meanwhile, heat up some butter in your frying pan. Once the butter has melted and the pan is hot, transfer the first slice of your soaked pizza into your frying pan.

Leave it to cook while you soak another piece of pizza, add it to the pan.

Cook your pizza french toast for a few minutes on each side, adding more butter as needed, until golden brown.

Note: leftover egg mixture can be added to and poured it over the pizza slices as they cook.