Pizza Party!

I love pizza, pre-vegan GF days you could easily find me putting away a whole frozen pizza by myself on a Friday night. This was yet another thing I had to give up when I was diagnosed with Celiac's. However, I have been lucky enough to find that Aurelio's makes a GF crust and it is really good. I get mine with their spinach, onions and mushrooms, no cheese. Unfortunately, that pizza costs me around $18, for a small, which means I only get it as a treat, or if my momma decides to order one for me when I come over. I then decided that this was totally not acceptable, so I started looking for a gluten-free pizza crust. Most recipes ended up with chewy dough, or dough that was hard to work with and it really was starting to bum me out. That was until I decided to take a couple recipes and just take the parts that did work and add them together, and wala! Instant pizza crust success! I am so happy, I finally can make pizza in my own home and top it with whatever I like. The dough also freezes, so I can make a bunch and then take out a crust whenever I feel like it. AWESOME!!!

So here it is, my pizza crust recipe. 

Gluten-Free and Vegan Pizza Crust

makes 4 individual pizzas or 1 large pizza

1 Tbsp. ground flax seeds

3 Tbsp. hot water

4 tsp. active yeast

2 tsp. sugar

1 1/4 C. warm water (separate 1/2 C. to mix with yeast)

3 Tbsp. olive oil

1 1/4 C. rice flour

3/4 C. soy flour or sweet sorghum flour

1 C. tapioca starch

1/4 C. potato starch

1/4 C. cornstarch

2 tsp. xantham gum or guar gum

1 tsp. sea salt

In a small bowl mix together flax seeds and hot water, stir to combine and set aside.

In another small bowl mix yeast, sugar and warm water together, stir to combine and set aside, while you mix together the dry ingredients. The mixture should get nice a bubbly, if it doesn't you have bad yeast or the water was too hot. If this happens just get new yeast and start all over again.

In a large bowl (I use my mix master bowl) combine all dry ingredients, make sure they are thoroughly combined. 

Put the bowl on your mix master and with the dough hook, add the flax seed mix to the dry ingredients. Add olive oil and yeast to dough mixture as well. Dough will start to get crumbly.

Add remaining 3/4 C. of water in 1/4 C. increments to the dough mixture until it starts to come together and forms a dough ball. Let mix master knead dough for about 5 minutes. 

Let the dough raise in a warm place for 1 hour. 

After the hour, preheat the oven to 450. Oil and put cornmeal on the bottom of pizza pan you plan to use. I just bake mine on parchment.

Roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment to get the crust. If you like it thin roll it out thin, if you like more of a pan pizza, you can roll it out and then press it into a pan. I divide mine into 4 equal size balls and each one makes an individual size pizza. Let pre-bake in an oven for 5-10 minutes

Then top with whatever kind of sauce and toppings you want, and put back in until cheese is melted, or another 10 minutes or so!

I put marinated spinach, onion, zucchini, and sweet bell peppers on mine and top it with Teese Mozzarella Vegan Cheese. Yummy!!! Also, I love garlic butter crusts, so I add some melted earth balance and garlic powder to the crust with a pastry brush. It really makes the pizza go from yum, to WOW! Enjoy!