Twinkle's Kitchen | Gluten-free pizza

One of the most popular foods in our home came under serious fire once we began implementing a gluten-free diet.

Pizza.

I think we all shed a few tears wondering how we were going to get through life without our weekly pizza night. Fortunately, we were worried for no reason. And with a little bit of experimentation, I came up with a pizza plan that pleased everyone.

A few tips:

A lot of gluten-free bread is more like batter when you begin to mix the ingredients. Pizza is no different.

Instead of rolling out pizza crust dough, oil some parchment paper and gently spread the mix until you have a level circle about ¼ inch think.

Let it rise for 30 minutes or so, then prebake for 10 minutes and then add toppings and bake for another 20. It’s kind of like parbaking a pie.

The other problem I ran into at first was the middle of our pizzas being soggy. I fixed that pretty quick by making each of us a smaller individual pizza. Each one was about 4 inches wide and 6 inches long.

I baked like before – spread, rise, parbake, top, final bake – and they came out splendid.

One last thing to remember is that gluten-free dough needs to rest after it’s been baked. Make sure to let your pizza cool for at least 10-15 minutes. This ensures that the dough firms up.

Best GF Pizza Crust

Ingredients

• 2 tbs. active dry yeast
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 1 ½ cups water (110-115 degrees)
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbs. olive oil
• 3 cups GF all purpose baking flour
• *1 tbs. xanthan gum (ONLY if your mix doesn’t have xanthan gum already)
• 1 tsp. sea salt

[Choose your own sauce and toppings]

Combine yeast, sugar and water in a large bowl and let stand about 5 minutes until it beings to foam.

Whisk together dry ingredients in separate bowl.

Beat egg and oil into other wet ingredients, and then slowly add to the dry.

Gently scoop equal amounts of dough onto greased, parchment covered pizza pans or pizza stones.

Lightly oil your fingertips to spread the dough out into 4x6 inch ovals.

Let rise for approximately 30 minutes and preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Once the crust has risen, parbake your crusts for about 15 minutes.

Let the crusts cool for about 10-15 minutes, and then add sauce and/or toppings and cheese.

Place back in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until toppings begin to brown.

Take out of oven and let cool for 20 minutes to let the dough set up. Cooling is key for your dough to set and become firm. Otherwise your pizza will be floppy and mushy.

Cut and serve!

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Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on Food Network's “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic lifestyle content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

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