Gluten Free Pizza Crust

Looking for a great pizza crust? Well I love the French bread recipe so much, that I decided to try it out for a pizza crust. Love it!! You can either make two medium sized pizzas with this recipe or you can make one medium pizza and one loaf of French bread (like I did). I will admit I'm not a chef by any means so I do make mistakes and learn as I go along sometimes. The pizza crust turned out pretty awesome, it was chewy and even had a great crunch to it. I did leave the pizza in a little bit too long towards the end, but my husband loves crunchiness so it was a win win!

Gluten Free French Bread

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• 1 cup sorghum flour (you could substitute for gf oat flour or millet flour)
• 1 1/2 cups potato starch
• 1/2 cup tapioca starch/flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar (I use coconut sugar)
• 2 teaspoons xanthan gum
• 1 1/2 tablespoons instant or bread machine yeast
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 large egg whites
• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar
• 1 cup warm water (105 - 115 degrees)

1 cup sorghum flour

1½ cup potato starch

½ cup tapioca starch or flour

1½ teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon guar gum (or xanthan)

1½ Tablespoons instant or bread machine yeast

1 Tablespoon olive oil

3 large egg whites

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

1 cup warm water (105 – 115 degrees)

- See more at: http://glutenfreehomemaker.com/gluten-free-french-bread-recipe/?utm_content=buffer2e01b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.nD01xLK6.dpuf

Directions:

1. In the bowl of your mixer, combine the dry ingredients (flour through yeast)
2. Add olive oil and egg whites, and mix to incorporate
3. Add the vinegar and most of the water. Beat for 2 minutes, adding the remaining water if needed to make a soft dough.
4. Spoon the dough onto the pan and carefully shape with a spatula. Because the dough is soft, it will go through the small holes in the pan. Don't press hard when shaping.
5. Split the dough in half and either use both for two medium pizzas or you can use half the dough for medium pizza & the other half for the french bread loaf.
6. For pizza, line baking sheet or pizza pan with parchment paper. Spread out thin with a rubber spatula, dipping the spatula in water to help keep the dough from sticking. Making it thin but make sure there are no holes in the dough. If you are making half the dough into French bread...add half the batter into one side of the French bread pan and with a wet spatula form the dough to be a long skinny log. Use a sharp knife to cut several slits in the top of each loaf.
7. For French bread place the pan in a cold oven on the middle rack and the pizza dough can go on the bottom or near bottom rack. Or if you are doing just the pizza, bake on the middle rack as well. Turn the oven on to 425 degrees and begin timing for 15 minutes for pizza, until it is firm but not golden brown. For the bread you leave on the middle rack to finish baking for 30 - 35 minutes. 
8. Take the bread out (if baking bread) and allow to cool on a rack. Put the pizza on the middle rack and bake until the crust is golden brown, for about 10-15 minutes. 
9. Remove from oven and allow to set for about 5 minutes before cutting. Serve right away and enjoy! 

Gluten Free French Bread

So Sunday's are my baking days and I wanted to try something new for bread. I'm so excited about this recipe, it turned out so amazing! This didn't have an off taste or reminded you of eating gluten free. The other great thing about this recipe is, it only takes an hour to make. Yes you heard me right...it's easy, yummy and ready in an hour!! One thing that happened to me the first time I made this recipe, my yeast wasn't as powerful as I thought. So the loaves turned out on the smaller side. It also helps to putting it in a cold oven, while it heats up for the rising of the dough. I do recommend forming the dough into long skinny logs. The second time I baked this recipe... I had new yeast and oh boy did it rise! But I didn't make the longer skinny logs of dough, so it puffed up kind of crazy. I will be adding new pictures soon, to show the follow through process. Still getting used to getting my camera out for my baking and cooking.

I did have to buy a special pan to bake this recipe, but for was worth the small amount I paid for it. You can buy the pan here at Amazon. Hope you enjoy this amazing bread as much as I did! I would love to hear from any of you trying this out or post some pics in the comments. It's exciting to have such wonderful bread in our gluten free world.

Gluten Free French Bread

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• 1 cup sorghum flour (you could substitute for gf oat flour or millet flour)
• 1 1/2 cups potato starch
• 1/2 cup tapioca starch/flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar (I use coconut sugar)
• 2 teaspoons xanthan gum
• 1 1/2 tablespoons instant or bread machine yeast
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 large egg whites
• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar
• 1 cup warm water (105 - 115 degrees)

1 cup sorghum flour

1½ cup potato starch

½ cup tapioca starch or flour

1½ teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon guar gum (or xanthan)

1½ Tablespoons instant or bread machine yeast

1 Tablespoon olive oil

3 large egg whites

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

1 cup warm water (105 – 115 degrees)

- See more at: http://glutenfreehomemaker.com/gluten-free-french-bread-recipe/?utm_content=buffer2e01b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.nD01xLK6.dpuf

Directions:

1. In the bowl of your mixer, combine the dry ingredients (flour through yeast)
2. Add olive oil and egg whites, and mix to incorporate
3. Add the vinegar and most of the water. Beat for 2 minutes, adding the remaining water if needed to make a soft dough.
4. Spoon the dough onto the pan and carefully shape with a spatula. Because the dough is soft, it will go through the small holes in the pan. Don't press hard when shaping.
5. If you like, you can brush the top with beaten egg white. Or you can wait till the end of baking and brush on melted butter.
6. Use a sharp knife to cut several slits in the top of each loaf. 
7. Place the pan in a cold oven on the middle rack. Turn the oven on to 425 degrees and begin timing for 30 - 35 minutes.
8. Cool the loaves on a wire wrack before slicing.

Gluten Free Bread

One of the hardest things for most people going gluten free can be giving up bread. When you go to the store and touch the package of most gluten free bread...feels like they can make a good weapon rather than for eating. Most of them are hard as a rock with cardboard taste. I love baking bread, but very new to gluten free world of baking. So I've tried a couple of recipes...which didn't turn out as well as I hoped. While baking this bread I chose to use coconut sugar in substitute of regular sugar. It adds a deepness, almost molasses type taste. Plus diabetes runs in my family, so I'm careful of sugars at times when I can.

If you are new to gluten free baking, you will find this a new experience in baking bread. I love kneading dough for breads a lot, but with most of the recipes I've found with gf you don't. It's almost like baking a cake with sticky dough...kind of fun. Let's get down to business!

Gluten Free Bread

Prep time: 20 minutes      Cook time: 25 minutes      Ready in: 1 hour 50 minutes

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• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 3 tablespoons sugar (I use coconut sugar) 
• 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 1 1/3 cups brown rice flour
• 2/3 cup sorghum flour
• 1/2 cup potato starch
• 1/2 cup corn starch
• 1/3 cup canola or vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 tablespoon xanthum gum
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan.
2.  Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water in a bowl. Let stand until the yeast softens and begins to form a creamy foam, about 5 to 10 minutes.
3. Combine yeast mixture, rice flour, sorghum flour, potato starch, cornstarch, vegetable oil, eggs, xanthan gum, and salt together in the bowl of a stand mixer; mix on medium speed until incorporated, about 2 minutes. Spoon dough into the prepared loaf pan. Smooth the top of dough with the back of a wet spoon.
4. Place dough in a warm place until it has risen just over the top of the loaf pan, about 1 hour. (My tip for this is...while I'm mixing the ingredients together I turn my oven on to the lowest setting. Let it heat up then turn it off. I place a damp tea towel over the bread & put it in the oven to rise for the hour. Once the the time is over, take bread pan out & preheat for baking.)
5. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
6. Bake in the preheated oven until loaf is medium golden brown, about 25 minutes. (Optional...take melted butter & brush on top of bread 20 minutes into baking. Then continue baking for the remaining 5 minutes.

Take bread out and allow to sit for about 5 - 10 minutes, then pop out of loaf pan to cooling rack. I allow to cool more before slicing. The bread looks a little different and may have a little crumble to it, but it tastes yeasty and yummy. I mostly toast our bread when we eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I usually keep mine in the refrigerator wrapped up, but if you go through bread within 3 - 4 days it might be just fine that whole time out (wrapped up tightly).

This is the bread sliced...ready for lunch time! I have to add, my husband had the hardest time with gluten free bread. He said it brought out a gag reflex in him...lovely I know!! But this apparently can be common to most people. So I wanted to mention this...because he actually really likes the bread too! I hope you enjoy this bread and I promise as I try out more recipes I will share them with you. So far happy with this one and it's not complicated with ingredients. These ingredients I keep on hand at all times, since they are used in a lot of gluten free baking. Hope you enjoy this bread!