The Continued Quest for Pizza Perfection #2

The pizza quest continued last night with a valiant effort to make an even better pizza crust. Success and at such an early stage, I may just let this go to my head.

Comments from the two teens who were taste testing were: "This is awesome," (this one included a high-five), "This is better than the one you buy at the store," and my favorite was, "You should definitely make this one again."

Very wet pizza dough

This gluten-free crust is brought to you by King Arthur Flour, which is also nut free and soy free (and Kosher). I used the pizza crust picture here, and of course I felt the need to doctor it up a little. (You know I can't resist, dear chef.)

In short, just use the directions on the back of the box (eggs, oil, yeast, warm water). I added a tiny bit of cider vinegar (1 TBS), 1 tsp each of salt, garlic powder, dried basil and dried oregano.

Directions on the box allow for it to rise once in a bowl for 30 minutes, then once again after you spread it out on the pan. Hint: This is more very thick cake batter rather than pizza dough. It doesn't spread well unless you put some olive oil on top and spread it out with a spatula. Don't even try to roll it out, you'd be wasting your time. But don't let this scare you. I was a bit nervous at first, but it turns out just fine. As you can see in my photo, it's a pretty wet mixture. And although it said to let it rise 30 minutes, it didn't rise at all after this. Don't know what I did wrong, or if the yeast was old, or maybe it wasn't warm enough in the kitchen. Who knows.

Bake the crust first, then top it and bake again for about 10 minutes, just enough to melt the cheese and warm whatever you want on it. For this experiment, all pizzas have just marinara and mozzarella. We're trying to keep the playing field even. (As much as possible.)

The result is a chewy crust with a light flavor. It's firm enough to hold in one hand and eat like a slice of pizza, which was a pleasant surprise judging by the state of it before it was baked. It was much better than the biscuit crust from the prior night, although that was still very good. This had more of a pizza-crust texture. I was disappointed that it didn't rise more and I think it would have been even better if it did. I'll be making it again and hoping for a better rise. Could just be the cold, dry Arizona desert.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes. Let me know here, or head over to the FB page.
Enjoy!