One Friday night, everyone else was getting Italian Store pizza so I decided to try Arrowhead Mills pizza crust mix. I used to make wheat crusts from scratch so I was reliving the good old days as I dissolved the yeast in warm water and added the oil and water to the mix until it resembled well, dough. I turned it out on a lightly GF-floured surface and kneaded it as directed and left it to rise. I noticed the dough was a little bit sticky but was not yet concerned; it rose without incident. I tasted a little bit of it (I heart raw dough) and it was far sweeter than I imagined.
I divided it into halves (each box makes enough dough for two crusts) and again laid it out on my table, but now, when I started working with the ball to actually form a pizza, it was entirely too sticky and quickly adhered to my hands and the work surface. To dry it up, I added a half cup of GF flour mix. No luck. I added another 1/2 cup. By the time it was all over and I had a workable dough for a single crust, I bet I added 1 1/4 cups of GF flour.
The mix recommends using a pan to support the crust so I used a 9×12 jelly roll pan. I sprayed it generously with PAM cooking spray (yes, it’s gluten free) and made the [recommended] game-time decision to spray my hands as well. I had no trouble pressing it into the pan. I poked it with a fork, pre-baked 3 minutes, pulled it, topped it and finished baking it. You always have to watch GF baked goods in the oven - like the pastas, they never seem to go as long as the directions indicate. In the end, my pizza (the usual red pepper/artichoke) was very tasty and even our 10-year-old guests thought it was “pretty good!” (this, AFTER Italian Store goodness). Was it worth the work? Eh, I’ll probably stick to Gillian’s frozen dough because it is so convenient.
P.S. Wondering what I did with the second dough ball…Remember how I said it was sweet? So, I added 3/4 cups of sugar to the dough and rolled it into 1″balls. I dumped a few inches of canola oil into a high-walled iron skillet and fried up some gluten-free donuts! After pulling and draining the golden puffs (they resembled beignets) on paper towels, I rolled them while they were still warm and sticky in a cinnamon sugar blend! Scrumptious!
Tags: Arrowhead Mills · Gillian's pizza dough · gluten-free donuts · Italian Store · Pam cooking spray · pizza crust3 Comments
3 responses so far ↓
We just found another source for gluten free products, a store called Healthway (eleven area stores, most in Virginia and a couple in Maryland) — http://www.healthwaynaturalfoods.com Tried their gluten free pizza crusts (two 7-inch in a box for $9.80) — I really liked them. They’re not doughy, more of a crunchy texture but they taste good and the finished product reminds me of pan pizza.
The pizza crusts are from a European company called Schar http://www.schar.com/en/products/snack/detail/106.html
Thanks for the tip! I’ve never heard of them, so I’ll have to check it out. I generally prefer crispy/crunchy pizza crusts to doughy. Rustico’s are doughy, but the first GF pizza I had was at The Risotteria in NYC. Those were incredible and a bit on the crispy side.
We also use the pizza crust recipe in Dr. Carol Fenster’s Cooking Light. You can make the flour mixture ahead of time and then just add the yeast, water, olive oil, and honey or sugar. It is very sticky, but with plenty of rice flour, it spreads out nicely in a small baking pan. The end result is a crunchy crust, with a softer middle in the thicker part along the edges. YUM!