GFCF Pizza Crust Review

I decided to do a little pantry diving yesterday and I found...



...a packet of Chebe Pizza Crust. All Chebe products are naturally gluten free, but depending on what you buy, there could be casein. I've tried the all-purpose Chebe mix (I'll review that another day) and now the Pizza Crust. It's easy as pie...or well...pizza crust!

I found the mix at Coborn's, a locally owned grocery store, in their natural/organic foods section and I think I paid somewhere around $4. It's not cheap, but if you can't or don't want to rely on always making homemade, I think this might be a winner for you. Just a quick shout out to Coborn's: you ROCK at the natural/organic foods! They have the best selection of GFCF products in my area. That section of the store even has it's own freezer and refrigerator cases full of gluten free, casein free, natural, organic, whatever you want. They my favorite premium soy ice cream (lalallalalalala...droool), but I digress.

Back to the pizza crust.

You dump the crust in your mixer and immediately see the herbs. Yes, herbs! It actually smells like pizza! In with the mix goes 2 eggs and 2 Tbsp. olive oil. I used extra virgin (EVOO, kids). I mixed this with my dough hook until it had all combined. It took a little bit of scraping, but it worked. Then you add about 4 Tbsp. of a CF milk substitute (again, I used 8th Continent). I needed a little more for it to all come together to my liking. I mixed it as well as I could with the dough hook, then lightly kneaded it in the bowl with my hand.

I plopped the dough onto my pizza stone and rolled out with my rolling pin. The bag claims you can get a 16" circle, but I'm doubtful. I didn't try that hard and this is what I came up with...it would be more the thickness of a hand tossed or traditional crust. See the speckles? That's the oregano.



I poked the dough all over with a fork and baked for 10 minutes at 375 F. If there were any puffs, I poked them again with the fork. The crust baked for another 15 minutes and then I took it out. The directions tell you this is the time to add your pizza toppings, then bake until the toppings are hot. I'd had enough of that smell and was not inclined to wait any longer before I broke of a piece and dunked it in some EVOO on a plate.



The first thing I noticed was the non-bake-iness in the center. Because of this, it's a little chewy in the center, but the flavor was awesome! I would try baking this a little longer next time and perhaps this is why the bag tells you to make a 16" circle. It would probably cook perfectly.

The verdict? If you want to make GF pizza in a hurry, make a few calls and see if your store carries this mix. Then go buy it. Go on, you can do it. I have made excellent homemade crusts and Kinnikinnick sells a premade frozen crust, but this is what you need if you want quick and easy. Let me know what you think!

A Bread Review

What the biggest problem I hear from people trying to follow a gluten free diet? There are no good gluten free breads!!

Thankfully, this hasn't been an issue in my household thus far because my son does Not (with a capital N) eat bread. Never has, don't think he ever will. But I do. And so does my other son and daughter. We have loaves of regular store bread and I make a mean honey oat bread in the bread machine, but I've started to think I should follow a gluten free diet as well. Just to see where that takes me. So I'm going to try out some bread recipes. Let's face it, commercial gluten free bread isn't very yummy. If you have some lying around, make bread crumbs.

Our first choice is one I found in my cupboard - Bob's Red Mill Homemade Wonderful GF Bread Mix.



I was able to find this mix at a couple locally owned grocery stores near my home that have wonderful natural and organic foods sections. It's also widely available at Whole Foods or you can order online at Bob's Red Mill. They produce a fantastically diverse line of gluten free products so I thought I'd give this a try. I followed the instructions for using a bread machine, but there are also instructions for making the bread in the oven.

Many GF bakers will say that you need a programmable bread machine to make GF bread because it only needs one rise. I have a Breadman, which to my knowledge, is not programmable in quite that way, so I do it exactly as I would for a regular wheat bread. I've never had any abject failures so I'm comfortable saying that you can use your machine the same way.

All you need to make this bread is the mix (duh) and warm milk-substitute (I used 8th Continent Light Original), eggs, and margarine or oil. I heated my milk in the microwave just shy of boiling and whisked it gradually into the eggs and oil. For my Breadman, liquid ingredients go in first, then the mix, then the yeast in a well on top of the mix. Easy peasy. The bag states that the mix makes a 1 1/2 lb. loaf so I set my machine to the regular bake cycle, 1 1/2 lb. loaf, light crust. It took 240 minutes.



Here's a shot of the dough during the first bit of real mixing, nearing the first rise. It's important to remember that a lot of GF bread dough isn't going to look the same as wheat bread dough. If this were wheat bread, I'd be panicking and adding in more flour until the dough cleaned the sides of the pan. I did not do a single thing to this dough. It has more the consistency of heavy cake batter. I suppose it might be worth it to try to add a little more flour and see if that lightened the finished bread, but then again this is a mix. If you're buying a mix, you want the mix to be all you need. We're talking convenience here.



As you can see, I could not wait to dive into the warm crusty "butt" of the bread before I took a picture. That's my favorite part! You can also see that the light crust setting worked out very well. The crust is light colored, crispy, and a little thicker than you would expect from typical breads. The bag states that this bread is "moist and flavorful" and I have to say that's absolutely right. It is moist, dense, heavy, and has a good flavor. There is a little bean-y tinge from the garbanzo bean flour that I am not a super-fan of, but I can deal with that. It's kind of like the difference in flavor between white bread and whole wheat bread - not bad, but a little different.

Last night, after cooling, I put it into a plastic zipper bag to store it on the counter. The loaf (minus a few pieces eaten by me and my son) felt extremely heavy, but the flavor is still nice and it has retained a fairly fresh feel and taste.

I think this bread is a little too dense and doesn't have enough squish to make a good cold sandwich...say for a lunchbox, however, this would make a fantastic toasted sandwich or open face sandwich.

So give it a try. It's hearty and tasty so if that's the kind of bread you're into, you'll probably find this one is a winner!