Ok guys, let me preface this by saying I've been living la vida low carb on and off for 4yrs. In that time I have tried MANY low carb pizza recipes. Cauliflower pizza crust. FAIL. Zuchinni pizza crust, better tasting, terrible structurally. All cheese crust, well, you get the idea. So I pretty much gave up on it. But since being on hiatus from low carb and recently going back, i see there have been some improvements in the world of low carb pizza technology. I'm finding recipes that are different from those old ones. I'm leery of anything that has almond flour as the bulk of the recipe bc in my low carb experimenting days i ate many BAD cookies and breads made with almond flour. The texture is.....its ground up nuts, dude. I've found that mixing different flours (almond, coconut, garbanzo) always yielded the best results for me. That too took mucho experimentation. Like, now I know not to use soy flour, the taste is gnarly. And i'm very cautious with coconut flour as the need to add copious amounts of eggs and liquids to counteract the dryness of the flour can be very hit or miss. Experiments fail, but when you've used half a carton of eggs and have to throw it away, its so fucking wasteful! Ingredients ain't cheap baby boo. Especially with these flours, and if you're buying your cage free organic eggs, fuck that. $$$$.
Anyway I say that to say this. I found 2 recipes that peaked my interest. I didn't have enough almond flour for either one of them so, seeing as there was enough overlap, decided to take from both recipes and come up with my own version. Most of the recipe I came up with borrows from this one . The other recipe I haven't tried yet, only because i haven't had to, i really think mine is a winner. But I pinned it so i can check it out. It's here.
Ok So I'm gonna give you my recipe, and walk you through it with a few notes and pictures.
Meli's Low Carb Pizza Crust
1 1/2 cups of shredded cheese (half mozzarella, half mexican or cheddar)
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup garbanzo/fava flour
1/4 cup ground flax meal
1-2 tbsp cream cheese
1 egg
garlic powder (optional)
italian seasoning (optional)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees
Ok so first thing you wanna do is put your cheese in a bowl and microwave it till melted. For me it was about 1 min. I tilt the bowl after to get the cheese off the sides and more into one solid mass. It will look like this.
Leave it to cool in the bowl or you WILL burn yourself. Its VERY hot! It's gonna take some time to cool off, maybe like 15min or so. Go on fb, instagram, entertain yourself for 15 goddamn minutes.
Then once its thoroughly cooled, add your flours, egg, and cream cheese. And mush it all together with your hands. The glob of cheese has cooled and you're gonna need to pull it apart with your hands during this process to make sure everything is being incorporated into the cheese base. Its messy but doesn't take long. You will find yourself with a nice ball of dough. Very similar to real dough in that you need to add more flour to make it less sticky.
This is important. Add a little more almond flour (1-2 tbsp) to make the dough less sticky and easier to work with but use caution. The first time I made this it came out awesome! The 2nd time I was a little too liberal with the flour at the end and I noticed the crust had that almond flour texture (which was previously undetected the first time around). You don't want that. If done properly you won't get anything from this crust but a yummy texture and the taste of cheese. I'm even thinking of only doing 1tbsp of cream cheese instead of two so i will have to use less almond flour at the end.
When you're done your dough will look like this.
Put the dough on a parchment paper lined pizza pan or cookie sheet. The dough is really easy to work with. I was able to use my hands. Also its very forgiving, you can reshape it as needed. I like to have a round pizza so I used my pizza pan and made edges for the crust (i love crust). Don't worry about filling the pan, this isn't a lot of dough. You're gonna end up with a small pizza (but bigger than individual pan pizza). It can feed 2 ppl but you're not gonna wanna share it. Spread it out to your desired thickness. And then sprinkle seasonings on it. Or, you can sprinkle the seasonings on when you're kneading the dough to get more flavor throughout the entire crust.
Pop the pan in the oven until the crust starts to get golden. You'll notice the cheese clumps start browning. I don't have a time for this, ya gotta eyeball it. But I think it was at least 10 min. Maybe 15-20. But ovens vary, so keep an eye on it. Don't leave it too long, remember its gonna cook again with the toppings. Once you like the look, take it out and add your toppings. Then pop it back on the top rack till the cheese melts. Personally I like my pizzas really well done on top so I have to be careful I don't end up with burnt crust.
And voila!! Now go forth, and enjoy. For you can have pizza again!
The longer you let it sit and cool, the more structurally sound the slices will be. Yes you can pick these up and eat them no problem!!!!
My husband is not low carb, he is however gluten free. So pizza is something he doesn't get to eat often. I wanted to try this recipe for me so I got him a gluten free frozen pizza from the store. After trying both he declared mine was better!! That's big coming from him. And last night as I was getting a leftover slice from the fridge, my picky 20 month old took a bite then grabbed it out of my hand and ate the entire damn slice. So there you go. I think that's pretty telling. This recipe is definitely a winner!
The best part? It tastes so good cold the next day! Or an hour later (as your pizza may not make it to the next day).
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