gluten holds the world together

Sunday I made pizza from scratch for the whole family. Even Simon. That meant making two different dough recipes for the crust. I started out with a recipe I found at Kimber LOVES a Deal! but then modified it for our family and Simon. But being curious to see exactly how it would come out compared to the original, I made both.

The original "Thin Crust Pizza" recipe:
- .25oz packet of active dry yeast
- 1/4 tsp granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup 110 degree water
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Dissolve yeast and sugar in water and allow to rest for 8 minutes. In a separate bowl, combine flour and salt. Pour yeast mixture over the flour mixture and stir with a heavy spoon (at this point I needed to add a few more tablespoons of water). Turn dough onto a floured surface and kneed for 2 minutes. Make a 12" circle either by pressing onto a pizza pan or by pulling and stretching while rotating to keep the circle forming. Place dough on a lightly greased pizza pan and stretch to the edges. Spread sauce over dough. Finish with cheese and desired toppings. Bake fro 8-12 minutes or until edges are golden.

Simon's Wheat Free Crust:
Same as above, however replace the 1 3/4 cups of wheat flour with:
- 1 cup sorghum flour
- 1/2 cup brown rice flour
- 1/4 cup tapioca flour
- 1/2 tsp guar gum

After combining wet and dry ingredients, press into a greased glass baking dish as kneading is useless/impossible. Bake for 5-10 minutes as the oven is heating up and nearing 500 degrees. Remove from oven, top with sauce, cheese and toppings. Return to oven and bake for 8-12 minutes.

I didn't take any pictures of the final products, but here's the difference between the two doughs. First the regular wheat flour dough, followed by the gluten-free dough.



See how the wheat flour dough is all stretchy and soft and... dough-y looking? All held together by the magic of gluten?

See how the gluten-free dough looks like a graham cracker crust??

This, THIS, is why those with Celiacs Disease or a wheat intolerance crave the soft, fluffy, yeasty goodness of wheat bread. While the GF crust tasted fine (Simon gobbled it up), the texture was more like cornbread or a really dense cake.

I'm going to keep trying, but I'm not sure if it's really possible to make GF pizza crust taste just like pizza crust made from wheat flour. Luckily, Simon doesn't have much of a point of reference.