How to Make Gluten Free Pizza Crust

I saw that someone had posted a great thread about how to make pizza crust and thought I'd post my GF recipe in case anybody here is gluten free.  The nice thing about this recipe is that it is actually faster and easier than gluten pizza crust since you don't need to knead it and it has a short rising time.  I make GF pizzas for my large family about twice a month (Saturday is pizza or pasta night and the kids always root for pizza!).  This is easy to make vegan too, just use flax eggs (flax meal and hot water) for the eggs.

This is also very frugal.  We mix our own GF flour mixes and grind a lot of our own flours but you can buy the flours in most grocery stores these days or online at sites like Azure Standard.

Gluten-Free Pizza Crust (makes two 14-16 inch crusts)

2 cups brown rice flour
1 cup potato starch
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1/2 cup millet flour
4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 teaspoon baking powder
4 teaspoons xanthan gum or guar gum
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoon fine sea salt
4 tablespoons sugar or honey
2 teaspoons minced oregano (optional)
2 large eggs (works great with flax eggs if you're vegan)
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil + more for oiling the pans
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cup warm water (plus more if needed)

   Add all ingredients to a mixing bowl of a heavy duty mixer fitted with paddle attachment.

   Start mixer on slowest speed to incorporate ingredients, being careful to not splash contents. After about 30 seconds, increase speed to medium and mix for 2 minutes.

   Increase mixer speed to medium-high and mix for another minute. The dough should look like a thick cake batter and should stick to the sides of the mixing bowl (not form a ball like traditional wheat dough).

   Oil two pizza pans with 1-2 tablespoons olive oil. Divide the dough in half and scrape into two balls onto the pans.

   Fill a bowl with warm water and put it next to your work area. Wet your hands and gently press and spread the dough outward in circular motions towards the outer edges of the pan to form 14 to 16 inch circles, leaving a slightly raised crust along the edge. Wet your hands as needed so that you can keep spreading and smoothing the dough without it sticking to your hands. Don't worry about getting the dough too wet. Patch and press any spots that break through. Go ahead and smooth it fairly thin, as it will rise somewhat and get thicker.

   When the dough is pressed into the pizza pan, drizzle with a bit of olive oil and and gently smooth over the dough. Set uncovered in a warm place.

   Let the dough rise for 35-45 minutes. It will puff up somewhat.

   Bake dough in preheated 400 degree oven for 10 minutes.

   Remove from oven and add sauce and desired toppings.

   Return the topped pizza to oven and bake for approximately 12-16 more minutes until cheese is melted and crust is light golden brown.

   Slide onto a wire rack to cool (optional, this helps keep the crust crisp), slice and serve.

Substitutions: This dough is very forgiving! If you have allergies or just run out of one type of gluten free flour, feel free to substitute a similar flour. For instance, you can substitute arrowroot starch for one of the starches and sorghum flour for some or all of the brown rice flour. We have made this recipe with many combinations of flours and it's always a success. Just make sure to substitute flours of the same type (starches for starches, and whole grains for whole grains) and many different combinations will work.

Enjoy!

Thanks for the recipe, the pizza looks really good.

Do you think this would cook well on a pizza stone?

I have never used or seen millet flour before, what are some good substitutes for that (buckwheat flour?)?

Bowen Rees wrote:Thanks for the recipe, the pizza looks really good.

Do you think this would cook well on a pizza stone?

I have never used or seen millet flour before, what are some good substitutes for that (buckwheat flour?)?

It's tricky to cook on a pizza stone because you smooth the wet dough onto the cookie sheet.  I have thought of spreading it on parchment paper and then transferring that onto a heated pizza stone.  I think I may have done that once.  

I grind my own millet flour.  I have a Vitamix grain attachment and we grind most of our GF flours. Millet is a very inexpensive grain (most people think of it as bird seed!) that's very healthy.  It's higher in protein and contains a lot of nutrients.  It gives the crust a little more structure and it has a very mild, pleasant taste.  I also use it unground in cooking, in similar ways I use quinoa.  I get millet either from Azure Standard natural foods coop or I get organic millet on Amazon, but I've also seen it in the natural or gluten free sections of grocery stores.  If you can't grind your own, I'd just substitute more brown rice flour or sorghum flour.  It's a pretty forgiving recipe with most substitutions.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the recipe Alicia. Do you use this flour/starch mix for other recipes? i.e. bread
Rod

You can also look up recipes using cassava flour for people who can't have grains.  Cassava flour (from the same root that tapioca comes from) actually makes a better product (in my opinion) than the rice flour mixes usually used.

Kathleen

That looks great. We also found a recipe that takes about 30 minutes here at https://www.ditchthecarbs.com/fat-head-pizza/

We make it once or twice a month using an upside down cookie sheet to slide it on/off our pizza stone. It's filling, quick and gave us back "pizza night" when we went low carb. It's less than 6-8 carbs per slice.

Only one of us absolutely has to eat gluten-free, but we all like pizza. I'm still looking for a recipe that tastes good to both the kids and the adults. The grown-ups like Elizabeth Barbone's crust recipes. The kids...don't.

I'll have to give this one a try.