A good friend of mine has a terrible disease.  Worse than AIDS*.  She’s allergic to wheat.   Technically I think she has a wheat gluten allergy, but either way, she can’t consume anything with wheat in it.  This means no bread, no wheat beers, and no pizza!  My God…

She caught wind of this blog and told me she’d make a delicious wheat-free pizza for us to eat, and for me to humiliate on here.

I have to say, as much as I’d love to dog the rice based pizza crust on Pamparius, my obligations to provide a truthful account of my experiences prevent me from doing so.  I say this reluctantly… It was good.

This is the kit, which apparently was relegated to the “free” bin at our local whole foods market.  It contains a powdery substance made mostly of rice yeasts and xanthum gum.  While Alicia was mixing the dough, it stuck to her hands like concrete.  Im possible to get off.  Spreading it into our pan was another complicated matter.  The dough was so sticky that it was near impossible to spread without it looking like the surface of the moon made out of mashed potatoes.  The entire process was very messy and we predicted the crust wouldn’t turn out so good.

We used a mixture of whole milk mozzarella and fresh mozzarella for the cheese, and a pre-made package of pizza sauce.  Alicia added olives, cherry tomatoes, and slightly caramelized onions.

Once the dough was ready to cook, Alicia took over.  I had no clue how long to cook this thing, and we had some outside recommendations to cook the crust a little bit before adding the toppings and finishing it off.  She cooked the crust for 10 minutes, put the toppings on and cooked it for a few more, just until the cheese was melted enough.  It worked out perfectly.

This stuff turned out really good.  It really did.  Everyone enjoyed it, and we were all pleasantly surprised how well the crust turned out.  The crust was honestly the best part of the pizza.  Sure, it almost tasted like a Quaker Rice Cake at times, but still resembled a real pizza crust just enough for us to enjoy it.  Hell, this IS a real pizza crust, with just a few adjustments.  For someone that can never really enjoy the pleasures of normal pizza, this makes a decent enough substitute.

The sauce left a lot to be desired but what can you expect from a cheap, pre-packaged pizza sauce?  The cheese, just fine.  The olives, cherry tomatoes and onions usually rolled off to the side before we could eat them, but who can blame the pizza for that?

So today Alicia, you and your gluten-free pizza are safe from the scrutiny of a cynical food blogger.  Your pizza was good, and I thank you for slaving near a 500 degree oven while I sat back and sipped on beer.  -gRant

*AIDS is no laughing matter.  It is definitely not worse than a food allergy.