Gluten-Free Mediterranean Pizza

I took my friend Beth's challenge to try her Gluten-Free Pizza Crust recipe, which I will share with you below. I doubled her recipe. After procuring the flours needed, mixing and while baking the crust, I set to work preparing the toppings. I have to say it was easy, tasty and my husband loved it. He said it was better than the pizza at Pizza Research Institute. Not sure I agree, but I must say, it was quite good!

Beth's Gluten-Free Pizza Crust: "The goal - a gluten free pizza crust worth its sauce. Am I there yet?"

Active Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup quinoa flour
• 1/2 cup gluten free yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• water
• 1 egg

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Mix flours and salt together in a bowl.
3. Slowly add water and stir until you get a thick paste. Beat until batter has no lumps.
4. Add egg and blend.
5. Add water until mixture is the consistency of thin pancake batter.
6. Spread about a teaspoon of olive oil over pizza pan. Stir batter to combine and pour over pan, rotating for even coverage.
7. Put pan into oven and lower temperature to 300 degrees.
8. Bake for 15 - 18 minutes, until crust is firm to the touch and golden brown.
9. Add sauce, toppings, etc. Bake again to heat sauce and melt cheese.

"This also works using buckwheat or brown rice flour instead of the cornmeal.
You might want to add a tablespoon or two more of each flour, depending on the size of your pan and how thick you like your crust.

The idea was to create a gluten free pizza crust that uses whole grains and is free of gums and empty starches. While I'd still call it a work in progress, this is my best effort so far.
If you try it, please share your thoughts - If you improve it, please share your recipe!"

Toppings:

Once the crust had baked for 18 minutes, I removed it from the oven and added the following topping is this this order:

• 6 ounces of pesto
• 1/2 cup shallots, chopped and 1 cup chanterelles, chopped and quickly sauteed in olive oil with 1/4-1/2 teaspoon of my salt substitute herb blend.
• 1 zucchini, thinly sliced (microwaved 2-minutes)
• 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced in rounds ( microwaved 2-minutes)
• 1 red tomato, thinly sliced and placed on 1/2 of the pizza ( I can't eat raw tomatoes)
• 5 ounces of marinated artichokes, coursely chopped
• 15 Kalamata pitted olives, sliced
• 3 ounces of feta cheese, crumbled
• 5 ounces of pizza-blend cheese ( mozzarella and cheddar)

Baking the Pizza:

Set the oven to pre-heated to 400-degrees, and made the crust with the quinoa flour and cornmeal. Pouring the pizza batter into a oiled rectangular baking pan with a lip, the pancake batter-thin mixture spread out into an even, but irregular shape. The pizza crust cooked for 18-minutes at 300-degrees.

After topping the pizza, I returned it to the oven on "broil" (leaving the door ajar and the oven light on to watch its progress). I felt it would be better to finish cooking the pizza by broiling to melt the cheese and heat the toppings through than to put the pizza back into a 300-degree oven until the cheese slowly melted. It turned out to be a good decision. The crust did not dry out and become brittle, the toppings were hot and cooked through and the cheese was evenly melted on top. The edges crisped up, which I liked. The spatula had to work a bit to loosen the crisp edges, but the servings remained intact and could be cut with a knife on the plate or picked up to eat as individual slices of pizza.

Let me know if you try making this pizza using buckwheat  or rice flour instead of cornmeal. I too would be interested to know how it turns out.