Before being diagnosed with Coeliac Disease, pizza was probably my favourite thing to eat out of anything. I probably had it at least once a week without fail. However, that has changed since being gluten free. Although there are a few shop bought pizzas that are pretty awesome, and don’t taste too different to their gluten counterpart, a lot just aren’t the same.
That’s why I’ve found it’s sometimes easier to just try and make your own, and it’s really quite simple to do. The best part is that other than waiting for the dough to prove, the rest of the recipe is as simple and quick as putting a supermarket frozen pizza in the oven. The difference is that YOU get to decide entirely what you want YOUR pizza to be. Whether you want to go traditional with your toppings as seen below, or whether you want to spice it up and more of a variety of meat or vegetables. I know that you can add toppings to a store bought pizza, but there’s just something about making your own dough and building your own pizza that makes it taste unique!
Ingredients
-500g Gluten Free Plain Flour
-1 heaped tsp of Xanthan Gum
-1 ½ tsp Fast Action Yeast
-1 ½ tsp Sugar
-Pinch of Salt
-3tbsp of Olive Oil
-265ml of Warm Water (You may not need all of this!)
Method
-Start by measuring out your flour in a large bowl, add in the xanthan gum and mix together.
-Make a well in the centre and add in the yeast and sugar, add the pinch of salt outside of the well.
-Pour in the olive oil to the well and begin to slowly add the warm water, little by little stirring with a spoon until a dough forms, you may not need all of it – you’re looking for a dough that holds its form but isn’t too wet to work with your hands.
-Once a dough has formed, dust a work surface with a little flour, roll out the dough onto the surface and work with your hands until you have a consistently smooth dough.
-Place the dough into a well oiled bowl and cover with film or a dry tea towel and place in a warm place to prove.
-Leave the dough prove for at least an hour or until it’s doubled in size (don’t worry if it doesn’t exactly double!)
-Once proving has finished remove from the bowl and place on a lightly floured surface. Work the dough with your hands as before, and split the dough halfway down the middle and form two small rounded balls of dough.
-Preheat your oven to 220c/gas mark 7.
-Use a rolling pin to flatten out the dough to form a roughly 18cm round pizza base.
-Turn the base into a hot un-oiled frying pan to crisp the base, ignoring the air bubbles that form.
-Just as the top of the base begins to show signs of drying out remove and place the pizza base in a pizza tray.
-Decorate your pizza as you like!
-Place pizza into the oven for roughly 15 minutes or until your toppings are cooked to your liking.
