CauliflowerCrust Pizza
To those of you who cook gluten free on a regular basis, you've probably come around this recipe already. If you haven't, you really have to try this one!
To be perfectly honest: there's just no such thing as the classic 00 type wheat flour and yeast base, giving the crunch to the bite. To substitute a proper dough by a vegetable pizza base therefore doesn't sound like a lot of fun at first, but trust me it's a yummy snack you want to share with your friends just like the real thing!
Ingredients
- 3 cups Cauliflower
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups grated cheese
- 2 onions
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 3 sprigs oregano
- 1 tin diced tomatoes
- salt & pepper
- toppings as you like (i used fresh tomatoes, onions, sheeps milk cheese, fresh rocket salad)
Grating the Cauliflower
First step in preparing the 'dough' is getting your couliflower grated. The easiest way of course is putting it in a food processor. If you have none, grating it by hand works fine too (this results in a coarser base though)
If you want to take the time to get rid of excess water in the cauliflower before mixing the dough, there's various ways to do so:
- place it in a nonstick pan on medium heat and leave for 8 min (occasional stiring)
- microwave it on low-medium heat for about 6 min
(Those methods require the cauliflower to cool down before mixing with egg in the next step)
- Add some salt, mix and leave for 30 min. Just like when preparing veggie-fritters, the salt will soak excess water off the cauliflower that you dismiss by draining through a strainer or even a cloth
For me it's totally fine to keep the cauliflower as is and then prebake the base a bit longer, but we'll get to that.
Preparing the Crust
Mix the grated cauliflower with the eggs, 1 cup of cheese and a pinch of salt.
The result is your dough, time saver compared to classic pizza crust: no yeast, no rising! ;)
Spreading and Prebaking the Crust
Preheat the oven on 200 °C / 392 °F before spreading the dough on top of a sheet backing paper on your tray. Bake the crust for about 20 min and until golden on the edges.
The Sauce
No matter what sort of crust you're using for any pizza you bake, please always go the extra mile and make your own sauce! It tastes so much better than straight from the jar and really is no big deal.
Sauté 1 diced onion until translucent, add 2 cloves of garlic and cook for another 2 minutes before you add 1 tin tomatoes and the fresh oregano. Let simmer for about 15 minutes, then blend until smooth. Season with salt & pepper to your liking.
Spreading the Sauce
Take the crust out of the oven and spread your sauce across. Not too much though! A Pizza easily is ruined by putting too much sauce...
Topping the Pizza
Prepare your favorite pizza toppings and chuck them on. Use the remaining cup of grated cheese to finish it up.
(For classic Pizza I do of course put some cheese on before the toppings, but there's cheese in the crust here, so i save all the rest to get chrispy on top)
Put the pizza back in the oven at 250 °C / 482 °F for 12 minutes.
Enjoy!
Like i mentioned earlier: There's no such thing as the original...
...but this cauliflower crust is a different story. No gluten, no carbs, but yummy nonetheless!