My Chinese Kitchen: Gluten-Free Pizza Dough

I promised to write a post about my gluten-free pizza dough. This was perhaps my biggest success yet. Soon after we arrived in China, when my pantry wasn’t yet fully stocked, I looked around the kitchen and figured I had everything I needed to make pizza.

I had everything almost completely put together when I realized I had no cheese! But I made this pizza and served it anyway, and everyone loved it–even without cheese. And they especially loved the crust!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, to convert most baked goods (the ones that don’t involve yeast), I simply swap out whatever flour the recipe calls for and use buckwheat. For this pizza dough recipe, even though it does have yeast, I substitute with half buckwheat, half corn flour or finely ground cornmeal. It works fine with or without xanthan gum, but the xanthan gum does make things hold together just a bit better.

I use buckwheat because it’s readily available. You could easily substitute a gluten-free flour blend instead, but the flavor and texture work really well with buckwheat.

When we lived here before, I used to purchase the buckwheat groats and grind them (they’re very soft, so the grinding wasn’t a serious chore):

but in the market I buy from now, the flour is in a big bag right next to the groats, so I buy the flour instead.

This recipe makes enough for two medium-sized pizzas. It works well for me, because I make everything in a toaster oven. Most people here have only a stove. Let the crust rise a little if you like, for a thicker-crust pizza, or roll out and prepare immediately for a thinner crust (our preference). I tried desperately to post photos of my dough or pizza to no avail. Something is not cooperating. I’ll post them as soon as I can make it work.

Ingredients:

Directions:

Beat egg, honey and salt well. Heat olive oil, milk and water to lukewarm, then add yeast. (I shortcut this step by boiling my water and adding the hot water to the milk to bring the it to lukewarm.) Add milk mixture to sugar mixture. Add flour until not sticky. Spread on greased pizza pans and top with your favorite toppings. Enjoy! And here’s a little topping hint. For a really yummy-tasting pizza, I sprinkle minced shallots and garlic after the tomato sauce/paste. Yum!