Cornmeal Pizza Dough
Speed - 95%
Simplicity - 95%
Tastiness - 97%
96%
Tasty!
The crust turned out really moist and soft on the inside with crisp edges. The cornmeal added texture too! The simple choice of tuna and cheese worked pretty well with the noticeable corn flavor.
Ingredients
For the Cornmeal Pizza Dough
- 1/2 Cup Rice Flour
- 1/2 Cup Millet Flour
- 1/2 Cup Corn Flour
- 3/4 Cup Cornmeal
- 1 Piece Egg
- 3/4 Cup Warm Water
- 1 Tablespoon Active Dry Yeast
- 1 Tablespoon Sugar
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- 1/4 Cup olive oil
For the Toppings
- 1 Tin Tuna
- 1/2 Cup Processed Cheese grated
Instructions
- Activate the yeast in mixture of warm water and sugar.
- Whisk together rice flour, millet flour, corn flour, cornmeal, and salt in a bowl.
- Stir in the yeast mixture, egg, and olive oil into the dry ingredients.
- Work into a ball of dough and leave for one hour to rise in a lightly oiled bowl.
- Prepare a pizza pan. Brush lightly with oil and dust with some cornmeal.
- Flatten the dough onto the prepared pizza pan and pan for 10 minutes at 350F.
- Top your pizza and bake for another 10-15 minutes.
This gluten-free pizza dough alternative is well worth trying, even though it isn’t too simple to make. You’ll needi at least three types of grain-based flours. The result however, will certainly make the process worth doing again.
Unlike other pizza crusts relying on a single type of grain-based flour, cornmeal rises fluffy enough and feels really soft to the bite. It still lacks that distinct “pull” that gluten can produce though, to be honest.
The fine grits of cornmeal also provide another dimension of texture to this crust, on top of naturally crisping up in the oven much like most crusts do.
Despite having a rather complicated ingredient list, the process of making this dough couldn’t be any simpler. Begin by incorporating all the flours (rice, millet, and corn), cornmeal, along with a bit of salt for some seasoning.
Dissolve a tablespoon of yeast and about a tablespoon of sugar in roughly 3/4 cup of tepid water. Leave the yeast to bloom for about 10 minutes.
Stir in the activated yeast mixture into the dry ingredients, together with the egg and olive oil.
The dough should come together into a smooth ball. It will actually be a bit gritty, with some cracks, because of the bits of cornmeal. Set it in a lightly oiled bowl and leave it to rise, covered, for about an hour to an hour and a half.
It will rise considerably but not to twice its volume as you might expect.
Prepare a pizza pan by brushing it lightly with more olive oil and with a slight dusting of cornmeal. On top of being a releasing agent, this dusting of cornmeal will provide more texture to your crust as it bakes.
The dough ends up really smooth and easy to work with. No need for rolling pins or parchment paper. Just set the whole ball of dough onto the center of the pan and press it out towards the edges using your hands. Form the edges of the crust by pressing lightly around the pan with your index finger.
Parbake the crust for about 8-10 minutes at 350F. Then, take it out, put your favorite toppings on, and finish baking for another 10-15 minutes.
I really don’t know why I had this connection between corn dough and tuna casserole as I went shopping for my ingredients. Hence my choice of toppings – tuna, processed cheese, and mushrooms. Sounds like an open-faced tuna casserole right?
The crust turned out “caky” rather than crumbly as I was expecting. As for the flavor, yummy! Believe me.
Cornmeal
Cornmeal is sometimes considered a flour and sometimes not. But, either way, it is a great gluten-free addition to baking and works exceptionally well in recipes for pizza dough.
In many cases, people choose cornmeal for what it adds to a recipe. For example, cornmeal tends to bring in moisture, a golden color and an attractive flavor to gluten-free baking. It can also help balance out the limitations of other flours, such as coconut flour, which tends to be fairly dry.
Personally, I think cornmeal tastes great with the smoky flavor of wood-fired pizza. You can mimic the effect of expensive wood fired pizza ovens using a weber grill pizza insert, or even using a smoke tube on your gas grill.
As a result, you typically end up with recipes like this pizza dough, where multiple flours are used, along with cornmeal.
For some, that idea simply seems like too much work. After all, traditional baking tends to rely on a single type of flour, not three or four. But, using multiple flours can create great results, including an appealing texture and flavor profile. At the same time, recipes like this are a powerful way to do more with gluten-free ingredients.
Regardless of whether you are looking at gluten-free recipes or not, cornmeal is an extremely common ingredient in both sweet and savory foods. For example, there are recipes for Gluten-Free Cornbread, Orange Cornmeal Cake and Cornmeal Sour Cream Pancakes. I also used cornmeal in my Gluten-Free Deep Dish Pizza recipe.
Cornmeal And Diets
One of the most common questions with any gluten-free ingredient is what diet it suits. After all, people are often following multiple dietary approaches. That’s particularly true for anybody avoiding gluten by choice, rather than because they cannot tolerate it.
As the name suggests, cornmeal is simply made from corn. As a result, it cannot be part of any diet that also restricts corn. A key example of this is paleo, which excludes corn and all corn-based products. The reason for this is that corn is a grain and paleo excludes all grains.
In a similar way, corn cannot be a part of any grain-free diet. That includes most diets that are designed with the immune system in mind, such as AIP and GAPS.
For low carb and keto dieters, the answer is trickier. Cornmeal is relatively high in carbs but you’re typically not using all that much in a given recipe. So, you may still be able to use cornmeal in some recipes, as long as you figure out the overall carbs first. This is especially true for anybody just doing low carb (i.e., not a ketosis diet), as they do not need to get their carb intake as low.
The end result here is that cornmeal is like most other grains and is best for people who are specifically avoiding gluten. Likewise, it is a powerful ingredient for those of us who simply want more variation in cooking.
If you fall into either of those categories, then recipes like this one can work well. If not, there are other gluten-free flours out there that don’t use grains, such as coconut flour and almond flour.
Ingredients
For the Cornmeal Pizza Dough
- 1/2 Cup Rice Flour
- 1/2 Cup Millet Flour
- 1/2 Cup Corn Flour
- 3/4 Cup Cornmeal
- 1 Piece Egg
- 3/4 Cup Warm Water
- 1 Tablespoon Active Dry Yeast
- 1 Tablespoon Sugar
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- 1/4 Cup olive oil
For the Toppings
- 1 Tin Tuna
- 1/2 Cup Processed Cheese grated
Instructions
- Activate the yeast in mixture of warm water and sugar.
- Whisk together rice flour, millet flour, corn flour, cornmeal, and salt in a bowl.
- Stir in the yeast mixture, egg, and olive oil into the dry ingredients.
- Work into a ball of dough and leave for one hour to rise in a lightly oiled bowl.
- Prepare a pizza pan. Brush lightly with oil and dust with some cornmeal.
- Flatten the dough onto the prepared pizza pan and pan for 10 minutes at 350F.
- Top your pizza and bake for another 10-15 minutes.
Spelt Flour Pizza Dough Recipe
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