Pizza Crust and Nob Hill

[Guest guest]

I was thrilled to see the huge sign above the natural food section of the Nob Hill supermarket that said "gluten-free." They have a large variety of products, some of which I can't find at other local stores.

As much as we love most Amy's GF products, we tried Amy's pizza crust, but my family didn't care for it; at $7 for a small crust, it is just too expensive for us (we eat lots of pizza). I prefer to make my own pizza crust which my family likes better and freeze some small pizzas for quick meals and take outs. I think I've put this recipe on the list before, but here it is again for newcomers.

Pam Newbury Santa Cruz Celiac Support Group 831-423-6904 pknewbury@...

p.s., I copied this from a Word file, and I'm not sure if everyone will be able to read it; if you can't read the recipe and want me to send the actual Word file it came from, let me know.

Pam's Perfect Pizza Crust

Makes 2 medium-sized thick-crust pizzas or 3 with thin crusts

2 ¼ cups Brown Rice Flour

2 ¼ cups Potato Starch

1 teaspoon Salt

1 tablespoon Baking Powder (optional: use if you want the crust to rise more)

1 ½ teaspoons Xanthan Gum

2 cups Water at 120 degrees

1 tablespoon Sugar

2 packages Rapid Rise Yeast

½ cup Olive Oil

additional rice flour for rolling

optional: olive oil and crushed garlic (approximately 1 tablespoon for each pizza) for topping crust

Combine flours, salt, xanthan gum, and baking powder.

Add sugar and yeast to the warm water and stir. Set aside until it foams. Add yeast mixture and oil to dry ingredients and mix lightly.

Sprinkle a tablespoon of brown rice flour on each pizza pan. Spoon dough into two (or three) pizza pans and sprinkle with a generous (enough to keep the dough from sticking to your hands and the pastry roller, about 2 tablespoons) amount of brown rice flour. Coat hands in brown rice flour and gently pat the dough until it is flat, adding more flour as necessary to keep from sticking. Use a pastry roller (a useful implement with a small 6-inch roller on one side and a rounded 3-inch roller on the other, connected by a handle; available at most kitchen stores) to finish spreading dough into the pizza pan.

Optional: Gently spread additional olive oil (if desired, add crushed garlic to the olive oil and let sit for 15 or more minutes before spreading on the pizza) over the top of the dough. For a thicker crust, let the dough rise in the pan for up to 45 minutes.

Add sauce and topping. Bake in a preheated oven at 425â—¦ for 15 minutes.

To freeze: prepare crust, (if desired, add sauce and toppings; or just bake the crust by itself and add toppings later), roll to desired size on a baking sheet, and bake about 10 minutes at 425, until it is set but not brown. Cool and freeze in an airtight container. I usually size the crust so that it fits in a gallon-size ziplock freezer bag for easy storage. When you want to use it, bake 10-15 minutes at 425 (our toaster oven has a frozen pizza cycle, so we just put it in the toaster oven and press the button).