Gluten Free Pizza Dough and Focaccia Bread

Best Gluten Free Pizza Dough and Focaccia Bread

One of the things I crave the most is pizza.  This isn’t to say there aren’t some ok gluten free pizza crusts out there.  There are a couple that will do if you’re really desperate for pizza.  For example, Amy’s makes a cheese pizza that’s not terrible.  Also, Boston Pizza has gf pizza crusts and I believe they use Kinnikinnick crusts for it (a Canadian gluten free company). 

However, none of these pizzas come close to the nice, doughy crusts I used to love when I could eat normal pizza.  I’ve tinkered and played around with a few recipes, ended up with some hardened stones, and finally came up with this recipe.  This recipe rises fantastically, and gives a beautiful, doughy crust.  I’ve even made this and used it on its own as focaccia bread and served it to dinner guests who gobbled it up and had no idea it was originally a gluten free pizza crust.  Just sprinkle it with salt before you bake it and serve with a plate of olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping in. 

Before rising

After rising, double the size in 20 minutes

I won’t lie, it’s a bit of work because it requires having a couple of bowls of things going at once, but I recommend doubling the recipe and making 2 -3 of these babies (as you can see from my photos).  You can freeze them for later use, so the work is totally worth it.  I have one sitting in my freezer right now, fully loaded and ready to just be popped in the oven for 20 minutes to cook.  One great thing about this, I got to use my coffee grinder to grind all my own brown and white rice flour.  I’ve also added my pizza sauce recipe below.

You may prefer to double the recipe and make 3 pizzas to freeze

Ingredients:

2 eggs, beaten and brought to room temperature

(alternatively, I have made this successfully with 1 egg and a chia substitute for the other egg – mix 1 Tbsp chia with 3 Tbsp water and let rest for 15 minutes until the chia becomes a goopy paste)

Wet stuff

2 ½ Tbsp olive oil

½ tsp apple cider vinegar

1 Tbsp honey

 2 Tbsp yogurt (or sour cream, ricotta or cottage cheese)

Other wet stuff

1 tsp sugar

2 ½ tsp active dry yeast

¾ c warm water

Dry Ingredients

1 c white rice flour or mixture of brown and white rice flour

½ c tapioca flour

¼ c millet flour

¼ c tapioca flour, potato starch, or cornstarch (I've tried all three and they're interchangeable)

1 Tbsp sugar of your choice (brown, white or stevia substitute)
¾ tsp salt

Herbs for flavouring – I use 1 Tbsp rosemary, 1 Tbsp onion flakes, 1 tsp basil and 1 tsp parsley*

Method:

1.      Preheat oven to 200 degrees.  Prepare a pizza pan by spraying with oil and covering with parchment paper. Lightly oil the parchment paper.  The parchment paper is important as the dough will be very sticky. 

2.     Beat the eggs and set aside to warm to room temperature.  If using the chia as an egg substitute, mix the chia and water and set aside until it gels – this will look a bit slimy and goopy, so don’t be afraid!  This is normal.

3.      Mix the Wet Stuff together and set aside to warm to room temperature.

4.      Mix the Other wet stuff and set aside for yeast to proof.  This means that the yeast will start to bubble and foam after a few minutes.  If it doesn’t after 10 minutes, you may need new yeast.

5.      Sift all the dry ingredients together and blend well.  Create a well in the centre and add the eggs and/or chia mix.  Add the olive oil and yogurt mix and blend until incorporated.  Add the rest of the wet ingredients and mix until smooth.  The dough should be quite sticky.

6.      Turn the oven off to cool slightly.  With a spatula (damp with water to prevent sticking) spread the dough onto the pizza pan.*  Place the pizza in the warm oven to rise until desired height.  Depending on your yeast, this could take between 20-40 minutes.

7.      Remove the pizza crust and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Bake for 10 minutes to prebake the crust.  From here, you can freeze the crust as is, or add toppings to it and then freeze for later use.

8.      Take crust out and add toppings.  Put back in oven and cook for about 7-10 minutes, until crust is browned. 

* You may decide to make this amount of dough into 1.5 pizzas, as the dough rises quite a bit.  Depending on how large a crust you like, you may prefer to split the dough up. 

Stir fried veggies

For my toppings, I stir-fried some green and red peppers, chopped zucchini, and celeriac (a celery-flavoured root-like vegetable that I recently discovered).  While stir frying, I added some salt and pepper, oregano, basil and parsley to the veggies.  I also added some spinach, cheese and tomato slices and sprinkled with salt and pepper. 

Celeriac

Pizza Sauce Recipe

½ can of tomato paste

An equal amount of water + 2 Tbsp water

1 Tbsp ketchup

1 tsp oregano

¼ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp basil

*OAS Info: (updated Dec 23, 2013)  Other than the parsley, the dough is free of all the common OAS allergens I'm aware of. The vegetable toppings, however, are common OAS foods, but for most the sauteing then baking process *should* destroy the allergen proteins in them, making them safer for most to eat.