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Bring home the pizzeria for family pizza night tonight with this Easy, Gluten-free Pizza Crust! You get all the taste you love, and nothing added that you don't want!
We take pizza in our house VERY seriously. My husband and I have been having weekly pizza nights since we were dating. In fact, the first actual date we went on was my husband's favorite little family-owned pizza place called Juliano's Pizzeria. Those were the days when I could have gluten. Okay, let me rephrase that; the days before, I knew I shouldn't be eating gluten, lol.
Even after we got married, we still did pizza once a week. At this point, my husband realized I could make pizza better than Papa John's could deliver. Every Friday, he would come home after work, make pizza together, and watch a movie.
The funny thing is my husband used to brag about my pizza to the other soldiers at work. It got to the point that I had to buy MULTIPLE (no seriously) pizza pans. Not even kidding, I own TWELVE pizza pans, and that's not even including the smaller sizes and the deep dish ones, lol. Why do I have that many?
A few years back (still not gluten-free at this point), my husband thought it would be the most fantastic idea ever to volunteer me to make pizza for 45 soldiers coming in from training. Of course, I knew he did it out of kindness for his soldiers, lol, but he gave me such short notice of when he wanted it done, I had to get some of the other wives to lend me their ovens so I could bake them all and keep them warm enough to take up to the office for them to get when they got there.
From that day on, whenever something was going on, the guys always asked me to make them pizza, and I did.
I still make pizza (gluten-free now) for my husband's current office. Thankfully here, he only has ten guys in the whole office for me to cook for. Since he's an instructor whenever they have the end-of-class cycles, I will make all the instructors a treat and fun for lunch. They want pizza most of the time, although it's starting to get into BBQ season now, so we shall see what they start asking for.
The tradition has continued since we've had our girls. They usually get to pick the movie we watch now that they are older. Now you know there isn't much that would stop us from having pizza on a Friday night and watching a movie together.
I am FINALLY sharing this recipe that I've been using for the last few years. I have another one in my cookbook (that's delicious), but it has dairy in it, and since our youngest can't have that much, I made this one so that she can have her pizza the way she likes it without the dairy.
What Makes this Pizza Crust So Good
I've made a few gluten-free crust recipes over the years. One of the first recipes I did was use a 1:1 gluten-free flour in my original crust recipe. It worked and tasted good, but many of those flours still contained rice and corn, which was still making me sick. Many other recipes also use almond flour, and I wanted something nut-free.
This recipe is:
- Gluten-free
- Grain-free
- Nut-free
- Dairy-free
- Egg-free
All while still being 100% DELICIOUS!
Ingredients in Grain-free Pizza Crust
So you know what's not in this crust, so what is?
- Cassava Flour
- Arrowroot Starch
- Olive Oil
- Yeast
- Sugar
- Salt
- Garlic Powder
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Tips and Tricks
Cassava Flour
I get many messages about people not liking the texture or a recipe not acting like it should be written, and here is where the problem probably lies.
How to Measure Cassava Flour
Cassava flour settles A LOT. If you do not want to bring out your kitchen scale to measure it, here is my trick. Whisk, whisk and whisk some more. What does that mean? When I measure cassava flour, I always do the following steps.
- Whisk the flour in whatever container you are storing it or the bag.
- Spoon the desired amount into a measuring cup to measure.
- Pour that into a larger bowl or measuring cup and whisk it again. You will notice when you whisk it, the amount increases. This is because the cassava has settled, so you measured more than what you wanted for the recipe.
- If you have more, merely remove the excess and repeat until you have the amount you need.
Does this crust need to rise?
I've done it both ways, and I've only noticed a slight difference in the finished pizza crust texture. I will say I don't tend to let it sit. I will shape the dough, and it will sit as long as it takes me to put the toppings together for the night and the oven to preheat, but that's usually all I do.
Shaping the Pizza Crust
This dough is soft and pliable. It does not have the usual pull that most bread doughs have. The easiest way to shape the dough is to gently push on it starting in the center and working your way out. I do NOT recommend rolling out the dough. It seems to get a little tough when you do that, so I would stick to gently shaping.
The thicker you leave the crust, the softer it will be. I like to have the main pizza about ⅛ inch thick while leaving the outer crusts thicker.
This crust makes 1 Large pizza or two smaller ones, depending on what you want.
Baking the Pizza
This pizza cooks at 400 degrees. If you like a softer, more chewy crust, cook it for about 20 minutes. If you want that little bit of crispiness on the bottom of your pizza, par-bake it closer to the 10-minute mark and then finish off for about 25 minutes.
I will usually start looking at the crust for about 20 minutes and then see if I want to take it longer. It is easy to pick up an edge and see what it's doing on the bottom to check on it. I like mine with a bit of crunch on the bottom.
How to Make Gluten-free Pizza
- Preheat your oven.
- Make the dough.
- Top with desired sauce and toppings.
- Bake 20-25 minutes.
- Slice and enjoy!
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Easy 30-Minute Grain-free Pizza Crust
Ingredients
- 2 Cup Cassava Flour 280 g
- ½ Cup Arrowroot Starch 64 g
- ¼ Cup Olive Oil
- 1 ½ Cup Warm Water
- 1 Tablespoon Sugar
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- 1 ½ Teaspoon Garlic Powder
- 2 Tablespoons Yeast I use quick-rising yeast.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and prepare your pizza pan. I like to lay a piece of parchment paper over mine to help keep it from sticking at all while it bakes.
- In the bowl of a mixer, combine the yeast, warm water and sugar and let it sit to activate the yeast.1 ½ Cup Warm Water, 2 Tablespoons Yeast, 1 Tablespoon Sugar
- Measure the cassava and arrowroot flours with salt and garlic powder. See notes above on measuring the flours.2 Cup Cassava Flour, ½ Cup Arrowroot Starch, 1 Teaspoon Salt, 1 ½ Teaspoon Garlic Powder
- With the mixer going slowly, add the flours to the yeast mixture until it's combined.
- Add the olive oil and mix until a soft dough is formed.¼ Cup Olive Oil
- Transfer the dough to the pizza pan or baking sheet if that's what you are using.
- Shape the dough into the desired size or sizes or divide it into two smaller crusts.
- Par-bake the crust for 7-10 minutes, depending on size.
- Top with pizza sauce and desired toppings.
- Bake the pizza in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.
- Remove the pizza from the oven, slice, and enjoy!
Natalie says
You mention a recipe with dairy in it that's delicious. Can you tell me what book that is in or where to purchase that recipe?
Also, you don't specify which type of yeast to use or the weight of the flour ingredients as you state if you don't want to weigh, do this instead, but I was disappointed to see you don't include the weight measurements which I assumed there would be after that description. All that whisking and transferring seems a lot more complicated and longer than just using my scale.
Sara Vaughn says
I have not and will not ever purchase any recipes. All recipes on this site are mine. As for the yeast question, there is no standard, and people tend to use the yeast they prefer. For this recipe, I tend to use quick-rising yeast. I've also added the weights for the flours if you choose to weigh your ingredients and want to give the recipe a try.