Alt-SlashFood: Wheat-free, gluten-free pizza dough

by Keith McDuffee, Posted Jul 26th 2005 @ 9:13AM

In our household, wheat products are near impossible to come by. My wife is wheat and dairy intolerant, and instead of buying wheat and dairy versions of every product we cook with, I decided I'd give this alternative-food lifestyle a go. It hasn't been all that easy, but I've been able to find alternative products that don't leave me longing for my glutenous days.

Pizza dough was probably the first thing I was afraid to give up. We make pizza nearly every week, and my previous dough recipe was just beautiful. Now I had to find a recipe or product that either closely matched or was better than my own recipe. Though I tried several recipes of my own, nothing compared to two products found at our local Whole Foods store.

First up, Gillian's Foods, wheat-free, gluten-free pizza dough ball. I'm not quite sure why this isn't listed on the product webpage, but Whole Foods still carries it around here. The ball comes frozen in a bag, balled up and ready for defrosting and use. The instructions tell you to defrost by leaving on your counter to thaw, but I've found you can also thaw much faster by submerging the bag in hot water for about 15 minutes. It gets a little wet to work with that way, but a healthy throw of spelt flour into the mix every few roll-outs or so and you're fine. I've found this stuff is superior to wheat dough when making grilled pizza. It doesn't shrink up or easily overcook, and you always get that yummy grill crunch and taste every time.

Next we have Nature's Hilights brown rice and potato crust. Now before you stop reading there, trust me when I say I know how it sounds. I am (or was) a huge skeptic when it comes to messing with the food I was used to and loved, so it wasn't easy to consider dumping a wheat pizza dough for ... potato? Like I said though, I've tried everything I could find out in the wild, and this stuff really is good! These are premade crusts found in the frozen foods section at, you guessed it, Whole Foods. At first glance they look a bit odd, but the crunch you get from these crusts is unmatched. Brush a little olive oil on both sides of the pies and sit it right on the racks of your oven - no stone, no pan. Cook it just right and it really is fantastic.