Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

I make bread about two or three times a week and in addition I make chappati or roti and pizza and cake. So unlike some people who need to throw out their sourdough starter to make a fresh starter, I never throw mine out because it is used so frequently, even for cakes. Sourdough starter needs to be applied in most of the flour to break down the phytic acid so our bodies can easily absorb the nutrients from that flour (to learn more read Why sourdough starter)

I’ve made a lot of pizza and I love to try many different sauces to spread atop the pizza crust before sprinkling the topping. I’ve made Tom Yam paste sauce, tandoori paste sauce, home-made thousand island sauce and regular tomato sauce.

cauliflower pizza crust with tomato sauce topping

The pizza crust is an important deciding factor of how good a pizza is. Mine are always made with sourdough starter and once you have tried this, like me, it is difficult to appreciate pizzas from pizza chain restaurants anymore. In fact to me their crust tastes like cardboard, more so from the fact they all use white flour which you will never find in my kitchen.

press the cauliflower rice flour mix into a round shape on a pizza tray

So to venture to make a different kind of base with cauliflower was pretty risque. But if cauliflower ice cream tastes good (if you haven’t tried it, wait for my recipe for another time) why not try cauliflower pizza crust? It is great for gluten-free and paleo diet lovers.

cauliflower pizza crust with green tomato chutney sauce

Slice of cauliflower pizza with green tomato chutney sauce

The other novelty to this recipe is the use of green tomato pickle as a sauce on the base which I tried for the first time with this recipe. Cauliflower pizza crust tastes more like a pancake and so using a pickle such as this is ideal. This pickle does not go with a bread base pizza.

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Ingredients

Pureed steamed cauliflower

650g cauliflower head trimmed, chopped and steamed

150g 1 cup rice flour

salt to taste

25g soft cheese

1/3 cup green tomato pickle

one 95g can of tuna

tomato sauce

6 cherry tomatoes

5 medium sized Swiss brown mushrooms roughly chopped

Method

(This makes two 20cm pizza crusts)

• Puree the
  

  home-made cream cheese

  steamed cauliflower in a food processor. Drain through a fine sieve, to remove excess liquid. Once fully drained, add the rice flour and mix well. Add salt

• Preheat oven to 230 degree C. Line a 30 cm round pizza tray with baking paper. Press cauliflower and rice flour mixture into the tray. Bake for 20 mins or until golden. Remove from oven.

• On top of one cauliflower pizza crust spread green tomato chutney and for the topping sprinkle tuna fish. I used no cheese for this crust.

• For the second cauliflower pizza crust, spread tomato paste over the second pizza and then for topping spread out sliced cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and then dab with cream cheese.

• Bake for a further 10 mins, then take out of the oven and serve. 

This cauliflower pizza is suitable for those who are on a gluten-free diet.