It is possible! It is possible to have a delicious gluten free pizza. We had pizza from Pizza Pirates here in Saskatoon a few weeks ago. The toppings were great, the crust was passable at best. It was simply a bit too gritty and even a bit soggy or undercooked in the middle. I know that you cannot always have an optimal product when you're trying to balance standard pizza with gluten-free, and I do think they did a pretty good job, but it was not up to the standards I was used to so we kept looking and found this excellent, crispy flat crest pizza dough recipe. However, it was not a creation of our own and involved a very significant shortcut that was almost as easy as picking up the phone to order.
That shortcut was this: It was the premixed pizza crust blend #219 from Bulk Barn. The mixture contained, in unknown proportions, rice flour, whole grain rice flour, corn flour, tapioca starch, corn starch, methylcellulose, guar gum, and xanthan gum.
The directions for the pizza crust:
1.25 cups of the gluten-free pizza crust blend
1 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of black pepper
2 tablespoons of ground flax seed (Angie has informed me that ground flax can go rancid and is best kept refrigerated so you need to add it yourself, as it does not come already mixed into the pizza crust blend)
two large eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup of milk
Preheat your oven to 400°F
Line a non-perforated pizza tray or baking tray with parchment paper or grease a tray with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Combine blend, salt, pepper and ground flaxseed. Add eggs, milk and mix well to form a smooth batter. Spread batter on tray into desired shape, approximately 12 inches in diameter, making edges slightly thicker than the center.
Place tray in middle rack of oven, and bake for 15 min.
Remove tray and prick with a fork several times, it will puff up in spots while baking.
Spread tomato or pesto sauce and top with your favorite toppings and cheese. Bake for another 15 min. for a thin crust and 20 min. for a medium thick crust or until crisp and golden on the edges and the cheese bubbles.
We followed those directions for the initial pre-baking of the crust. After that we used the Thai sauce recipe you will see below and topped that with precooked chicken, caramelized red onion, mushrooms, red pepper and mozzarella cheese, garnishing with green onion and cilantro.
The toppings we used could have been on any pizza but what we have always felt really makes a unique pizza unique is the unique sauce. Certainly, we still have a place in our stomachs for standard pizza sauce but this is by far one of our favorites and as simple as it gets.
The sauce came together easily without any heating or other steps. Simply combine:
2 tbsp. sesame oil
1 tbsp. peanut butter (heaping)
1/4 tsp. soy sauce (gluten-free, of course)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2-4 drops chili oil (we omitted this but made sure we had enough red pepper flakes and the above heaping tablespoon of peanut butter to compensate)
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 green onions, chopped
Stir everything together and top your prebaked crust with the sauce and your toppings then finish baking it.
I will always enjoy good pizza that has been ordered, even though it is always saltier and less healthy than homemade, but if our pizzas from this day forward are made of this crust I won't complain. To be perfectly honest, I think I like it better than our former home made pizza crust.
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