Gluten Free Pizza (Locally Foraged Toppings, the Gifts of Spring!)
This week I had the tremendous pleasure of doing an event with the Minnesota Food Bloggers. The group is held together with the love and sweat of Stephanie Meyer and includes 450 passionate food lovers. The group gets together about once a month to celebrate what is exciting and new in the Minneapolis food scene, which is growing larger and more exciting every day. Stephanie invited me to do a pizza class for the group, and I jumped at the chance. An excuse to hang out with this group and an opportunity to get them all tossing dough in the air and baking pizza. The venue was also a tremendous draw for me, we did this giant pizza party at the Kitchen in the Market. A fully equipped professional kitchen run by the sweet, sassy and talented duo Molly McDonald Herrmann and Tracy Morgan. Here is a lovely post of the party by Sarah Kieffer whose site The Vanilla Bean Blog is just beautiful.
We made dough from Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day the kind made specifically for tossing high in the air. The dough for tossing is made with Bread Flour, so it is a bit stronger and can handle being thrown as high as you dare. The group has several folks who are on a gluten free diet, so we had our gluten free crust available to them. The g-f crust is tasty and makes a brilliant pizza, but can’t be tossed high in the air and needs to be handled in a different way from traditional dough. Below are our instructions for the no-fail gluten free crust. But, before I roll out the dough, I want to say a little about the toppings. There are some gifts that are priceless…so rare, so precious and so fleeting that they make you want to weep. Kathy Yerich, one of the partners of Rouge Pottery, brought me such a gift at the pizza party. She went foraging for morel mushrooms, ramps (spring onions) and nettles and brought them to me in a basket. The contents of this basket were almost too gorgeous to eat, but I managed and made this pizza, which my husband said “tastes like summer!” What a gift.
To work with gluten free pizza dough from Artisan Pizza in 5:
Preheat the oven as high as it will go (most ovens will get to 500° or 550°F), with a pizza stone placed on the bottom rack.
Start with a small ball of dough, about 8 ounces or the size of a peach. Remember this dough doesn’t stretch, so just pull out a piece and form it into a ball.
Place the ball on a sheet of parchment. (There are instructions in the book for doing this directly on the pizza peel, but this method gives you insurance that the dough won’t stick.)
Cover with a piece of plastic wrap and pat it out to the shape you want, don’t feel constrained to round.
Use a Rolling Pin to get the dough about 1/16-inch thick.
Peel off the plastic.
Top your dough with your favorite toppings. I used pesto from our book, goat cheese, ramps, morels, asiago cheese, and pine nuts.
A drizzle of olive oil.
Bake the pizza for about 5 to 8 minutes on a preheated Pizza Stone, until the crust is set, but not quite finished. Remove the pizza from the parchment.
Place the pizza back in the oven, directly onto the hot stone, to crisp up the bottom crust. Bake for an additional 2 to 5 minutes.
I sprinkled a pinch of the nettle salt that Kathy gave me, but sea salt of kosher will do it to.
Slice and enjoy!
It took a village to throw a kickin’ pizza party for the MN Food Bloggers and I would like to thank all of the local and national companies who made generous donations:
Really fresh!
It was an amazing party! Thank you so much for doing it, Zoe! Thanks also to all of the other sponsors — we appreciate your contributions very much!
Thanks Laurie,
It is always so lovely to see you! We’ll get together and bake again soon!!!
Cheers, Zoë
Hi!
I recently went g-f, and Love the g-f breads in your Healthy Breads book (so much more flavor and texture than the ready made g-f breads you can buy.
Your “regular” bread recipes sound so wonderful though, and I was wondering if I could substitute g-f all purpose flour in any of them? If so, would adjustments need to be made as far as liquid and/or yeast amounts? Some of the g-f flours I’ve seen say you can use them cup-for-cup in place of regular flour.
Any thoughts on this?
Thank you so much for your time, and for your wonderful book!!
Sincerely,
Julie
Hi Julie,
I too have seen this claim, but have yet to find one that actually works one for one. It takes a lot of experimenting to get the bread just right, and each g-f flour blend is different and behaves differently in the recipe. I wish I had a better answer, but it is a lot of trial and error. This is particularly hard when the g-f flours are so expensive.
If you try this, please come back and share your results!
Thanks, Zoë
Thank you Zoe, I will try your trick very soon. Usually, I prebake my crusts, but most times they are too thick for our taste.
Hi Flo,
I find this method particularly helpful for getting a thin crust!
Enjoy, Zoë
Great minds think alike! I made a morel pizza last week.
In other news I want to show someone the basic how to video for artsisan bread (so they’ll buy your book 🙂 Is there any way you could have a perma-link to it in the faq? Thanks.
Hi Bob,
The morels were a delight!
I actually think the video on our Amazon page is one of the clearest for the method: https://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Bread-Five-Minutes-Revolutionizes/dp/0312362919/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
Thanks for spreading the word! Zoë
Ok this is going to sound extremely odd but my all time fav pizza topnipgs are red onions and pineapple.Why not experiment? make 1/5 pineapple and onion, and then the other 4/5 of it different topnipgs that others suggest?
Hello,
I’ve converted to your way of making bread a few months ago and i haven’t bought bread from the store since. I’ve even made a few pizzas that turned out great as well! I just wanted to say thank you at first!
I also had a question, my husband and i are going to England and Paris next month and i’m wondering what you’re recommendations for places to eat there would be?
Thanks in advance!
Zoya
Zoya: Haven’t been to London in years but apparently it’s the place to eat in Europe. I loved Chez Adrienne in Paris https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187147-d1035448-Reviews-Chez_la_Vieille_Adrienne-Paris_Ile_de_France.html
Careful– it’s not an inexpensive place to go, but fantastic little whole in the wall. Few tables, must call ahead or go at an off-hour.
Awesome! Thanks for your reply! Do you have any recommendations for bakery’s or dessert places you guys really like in Paris?
Thanks for taking the time to answer,
Zoya
Zoya: When I was there, I made this concerted effort to just discover naturally, and not scour the magazines and on-line sources for “the best.” It was a nice strategy, but it means I can’t even remember where we found the best stuff. Just explore.
Great, thanks for the replies, that sounds like a nice idea 🙂
Zoya
Hello Jeff & Zoe,
With all the bread you cut, how do you keep your serrated/ bread knife sharp? Surely you don’t just discard and buy another, do you? I’d imagine both of you have a favorite, so please tell me how to sharpen mine/ keep it sharp.
Thanks in advance
Nia: I use a very nice serrated bread knife in the 1st place, and since I only use it on bread, it doesn’t get dull very fast. But I have a local knife-sharpener who claims he learned to sharpen serrated blades in some European apprenticeship and I’ve been happy with the result. The Chef’s Choice sharpener claims it is safe for sharpening serrated blades but I’m a little skeptical– though I have the product, I’ve never used it on my Hofritz serrated bread knife, which is 20 years old and cuts hard crusts like butter.
I just broke what must have been my 10th pizza slicer (the roller kind). The rivet’s just break off, no matter if it is a cheap on or more expensive one. Now I am looking into a pizza knife, an extra long knife with a helper handle on the one end and a curve to it. Have you ever used one?
What do you use to cut your pizza? I have used kitchen shears but hard when the pizza is so hot.
thanks!
and to Nia, I have a chef’s brand electric knife sharpener that works on seratated knives, that does the
trick!
Mandy: You’re thinking of the pizza mezzaluna, but I’ve never tried one– can’t figure out where I’d store it, it’s so big, and an odd shape! But I’d guess they work very well. I usually use long-bladed kitchen shears (OK, they’re really long-bladed office scissors that I don’t use for anything else). The long blades seem to make it much easier to deal with the hot pizza.
I do not know what is granulated yeast. All i know is the dry active yeast. Can i use it instead of granulated yeast for your whole wheat bread recipes? Would you advise me where to buy the yeast in bulk in United States?
Thanks.
Hi Thai,
Granulated yeast and dry active yeast are the same. You can buy yeast in bulk at many co-ops or costco. We tend to buy the 2 pound package from Red Star Yeast.
Thanks, Zoë
How about the instant dry yeast ? I saw it in Sam club .
Thanks.
Hi Thai,
Yes, the instand dry yeast will work equally well!
Thanks, Zoë
Okay, so who is the local sharpener? Lots of your fans live here in the Twin Cities. My serrated knife is a little ground down…
Well Linda,
Truth be told, we pastry chefs have a bad reputation for keeping sharp knives. In fact, I have a dear friend who sharpens my knives every time she comes over. I used to send them out, but they would come back home ground down to within an inch of their lives. I will put the word out and see if I can find a reliable source.
I know that cooks of crocus hill used to have a knife skills class and they would also teach how to sharpen the knives. I should sign up! 😉
Jeff, any thoughts?
Zoë
Zoe, Linda: In the past I’ve used The Sharpening Center in Hopkins, https://www.sharpeningcenter.com/. Not in years though, I have the ChefMate, I use it rarely on my regular knives, and I’ve never used it on the serrated (The Sharpening Center’s honed that one once in 20 years, and I don’t think it needs it again.
I wonder if you think the date bread in HB5 would make a good flat bread?
I was thinking of making it for my knit nite group as a snack along with the Sue’s goat cheese, honey pumpkin seed and fruit appetizer ( using more dates for the fruit).
Or should I do the braided bread from a couple of days ago with Sue’s recipe used as the spread?
the flat bread is for speed.
Angela
Angela: I think the date bread would be great here, go for it. Certainly is less work when you’re entertaining.
The party was so fun! Thank you so much for being there. It was my first MN blogger event and it was so nice to meet everyone, and learn some new pizza tricks. {and, thank you so much for the mention!}
Thanks Sarah,
I am so thrilled that you were there, it was a wonderful evening!
Cheers, Zoë
Hi, Jeff & Zoë! Many thanks for the wonderful technique! Just wanted to tell you how I’d discovered your technique and recipes, and I have a question to ask you about determining protein % in flour.
About a month ago (end April, 2012), I came across your master Boule recipe via Lifehacker & Mother Earth News (https://lifehacker.com/5287212/make-fresh+baked-bread-in-five-minutes, which linked me to https://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Artisan-Bread-In-Five-Minutes-A-Day.aspx) and was so excited that I’d immediately tried it out using the common plain flour (Prima), yeast (Baker King) & salt I could find at a local supermarket in Singapore. I think this first attempt resulted in a too wet dough (I think the flour’s protein % was lower that what you’d used from KAF), too salty (the table salt I’d used was very fine and I didn’t really know how to make the gluten cloak. But the resulting bread was still marvelous! A bit dense & flat (no nice, high dome), but great nonetheless!
The following weekend, I’d used the leftover dough to make a wonderful pizza based on your Sicilian Style Pizza Crust post (https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2011/11/08/secrets-of-sicilian-style-pizza-crust-and-announcing-the-winner-of-the-our-giveaway-contest), using our usual spaghetti sauce (Prego Traditional), and house brand (from Cold Storage supermarket) pepperoni salami, shredded mozzarella cheese and white/red shredded cheddar cheese), with sliced onions, sliced green & red bell peppers, sliced white button mushrooms and sliced premium ham (from the supermarket’s deli counter … sorry, can’t remember what specific type it was). My daughter, who had fun topping her side of the pizza with her favorite toppings (just pepperoni salami, ham and cheese, but no veggies :-), said it was the best pizza she’d ever eaten, definitely better than the popular pizzas we could buy in Singapore (e.g., Pizza Hut, Dominos)! And my wife also loved it!
So I was hooked and had to get your ABin5 book ASAP … got it from Amazon with expedited international shipping … worth the extra money just to get my hands on your book! 🙂
Next, I bought a Pullman-style lidded non-stick loaf pan (from Phoon Huat & Company) and tried my hand in making Soft American-Style White Bread (wanted to wean my daughter from store-bought white sandwich bread), but it turned out to be too dense and did not fill up the loaf pan after baking (I had put in about enough dough to fill half the pan before resting) … it was still delicious on the day it was baked but not so yummy the next day (wanted to make enough sliced bread for a couple of days, and only had time to bake bread at night).
Also tried Buttermilk Bread (also lovely when baked fresh but not so nice the next day), made my own version of Milk Bread (which I’d adapted from Buttermilk Bread but had used whole milk instead of buttermilk). Again, a bit dense and did not fill up the loaf pan after baking, and did not taste so nice the following day.
Had managed to find Bob’s Red Mill Oat Flour (from Cold Storage supermarket at West Coast Plaza) and made Oat Flour Bread … lovely when freshly baked but loses that loveliness the next day.
But I’m give up … I was still hooked and had not had store-bought bread for a month! And after plumbing for all possible information in your entire ArtisanBreadInFive.com web site, I’d bought HBin5 and APFin5 from Amazon … just received them yesterday (yes, also via expedited international shipping again :-).
Well, that’s my odyssey thus far with enjoying home-baked bread using your wonderful technique!
And here’s my question: can I determine the protein % of the flour I can buy in Singapore from the nutritional information printed on the flour packaging? For example, Red Man Plain Flour (sold by Phoon Huat & Company) states that it has 13.2 grams of protein in 100 grams of the flour. So this means the flour has 13.3% protein, right? And thus, Red Man Plain Flour has higher % protein than the King Arthur All Purpose Flour (which is supposed to be 11.7% protein).
As for the dense bread I’m getting, I’m now trying to systematically determine if increasing/decreasing water will work along with additional of VWG to my Oat Flour Bread.
BTW, I did find a single copy of APFin5 at Times The Bookshop at CentrePoint Shopping Centre in Singapore.
Sorry, in the 8th paragraph, I’d meant:
“But I’m NOT GIVING up … I was still hooked and had not had store-bought bread for a month! And after plumbing for all possible information in your entire ArtisanBreadInFive.com web site, I’d bought HBin5 and APFin5 from Amazon … just received them yesterday (yes, also via expedited international shipping again 🙂 ).
Aldrin: Unfortunately, because of rounding errors (they only report to the nearest whole gram), the method you describe is very inaccurate. Wouldn’t do it.
Hi, Jeff, thanks for the very quick response! Do you mean that I should not trust the amount (weight) of protein per serving size in a flour’s nutritional label, to determine whether the flour’s % protein is higher or lower that KAF Unbleached All-Purpose Flour’s 11.7% protein used in your recipes (and thus whether I should reduce or increase the water to make the stored dough)?
Hi Aldrin,
So glad you are baking so much and enjoying the bread. I fear it is very difficult to figure out the % of protein in the flour based on the nutritional information, and so it will not give you the exact amount. You can try it as an experiment, but it is still going to result in a bit of trial and error with how much water to use in your dough. Hopefully watching some of our videos will help you determine the proper consistency, so you can try to recreate it with the flour you have available. They are not brands I am familiar with, so I am of little help.
Thanks and enjoy! Zoë
Hi,
I have been baking from both bread books for about two years and loving every easy moment of it. Thank you.
My sister is coming for a visit and is gluten free. Can I use one of the GF bread doughs from HB5 and turn it into pizza dough? If yes, does one work better than another?
Thanks,
Gigi
Gigi: See the recipe on page 240 of the Healthy Bread in Five book, either of those doughs. Our pizza book has GF doughs as well (on Amazon at https://bit.ly/3wYSSN).
Responding to Julie Isaac’s question about a gluten-free flour with one of the “regular” recipes… I used Maninis All-Purpose flour (https://maninisglutenfree.wordpress.com) with the Olive Oil dough, for pizza, with great success! The family (and I) loved it!
(It is quite soft, so you’ll need to put it one a cookie sheet, or try the instructions on this page.)
Hope that helps!
I used to bake bread from your Healthy Bread book until I was diagnosed with celiac disease several years ago…but recently I’ve had good luck with the gluten free recipes in that book. I just bought your Pizza and Flatbread book and have a question about the rice flours in the main GF pizza dough recipe. On page 4 you say that white rice flour is “sometimes labeled ‘sweet rice flour,'” but they are really different flours according to every other source I’ve checked…so does your main recipe on p. 96 call for 2 cups of white rice flour or sweet white rice flour? Also, the béchamel sauce on p. 117? Other GF cookbooks make a point of specifying that you should use sweet white rice flour, not white rice flour.
Sorry to be so pedantic here, but I’m trying hard to master gluten free yeast baking, and now I’m confused. And I really do love your books!
Thanks!
Andrea
We tested with Bob’s Red Mill (https://www.bobsredmill.com/sweet-white-rice-flour.html) as our source for White Rice Flour, and that package uses the words “sweet rice flour.” Since most of our readers are in the US, their only source is going to be Bobs– that’s just what’s available in supermarkets. Labeling in other countries may be different and may confuse the issue. We didn’t have good results with white rice flour we bought in Asian markets, didn’t absorb water the same way. If you have other products, you’re going to need to experiment.
Can’t imagine it would matter at all for bechamel.
Thanks for getting back to me! Bob’s does sell both flours: one labeled “white rice flour” and one labeled “sweet rice flour,” made from short grain white rice (as well as the brown rice flour, of course). So it’s confusing…but now that I know which one you mean, I can order the sweet rice flour from them or from Amazon. I do have the “Mochiko” sweet rice flour I bought in an Asian market, and I’ll save that for the béchamel sauce.
I’ve made pizza and flatbread with the gluten free boule recipe from your other book, and I’m looking forward to comparing that to the new recipe. Thanks again!
Andrea, I am so sorry, I told you the wrong thing. We tested with the Bob’s product labeled “Stone Ground White Rice Flour.” Not “Sweet Rice Flour.” Many many apologies, I’m answering too many questions and had a mental block.
I’m glad you responded when you did; I was just about to order 4 bags of Bob’s sweet rice flour via Amazon. That would have been annoying. I have to say again, then, that the statement about gluten-free flour on the bottom of p. 4 in your Pizza and Flatbread book is really misleading.
Wow, so glad I caught you!
Dear Zoe and Jeff: Hello! I am a great fan of your AB5!I used to live in South America and I baked your basic AB5 many times during the several years I was there. Everytime it’s been a success! I usually keep it in the refrigerator like you say and take what I need when I need to bake. However, I have a question: If I need to bake the four loaves at once, can I bake it right away? Right after it’s risen, without putting it in the refrigerator first? Thank you so much! You both are awesome!
Yes, but— the flavor won’t be as good. Storing the dough allows it to accumulate by-products of yeast fermentation that create some sourdough flavor. Also, this wet dough is slightly easier to handle when it’s cold– it’s less sticky.
Thank you so much, Jeff!
Is there anything that can replace the eggs in the gf pizza dough from the book? I have an egg allergic child and would like to make him pizza somehow. Would the master recipe dough work as a flat bread/pizza dough perhaps? (Sans eggs, of course!)
Yes! It’ll work…
I made the gluten-free pizza dough for my boyfriend who has celiac and this is the best gluten-free pizza he has had, including ordering out from our favorite restaurant. Thank you so much for having a visual. When I made this, I thought it was a semi-failure because it didn’t rise as much as I was thinking, but it turned out just right!
Hi Brittnee,
I am so thrilled to hear it!
Enjoy, Zoë