Chewy, Flexible, Crunchy Gluten Free Pizza Crust!

I loooooooooooove pizza because I loooooooooooooove bread.  LOVE IT!  I can not stress my affection for bread enough.  During my trials of eating Raw Vegan, Gluten Free, and now Paleo, I can easily say chewy, artisan, crispy, wheat, gluten loaded bread is by far what I jones for the most.

When I have a "cheat meal," I try to keep some sort of goodness intact, so the other day I decided to make pizza with a homemade gluten free pizza crust when I came across this recipe on Pinterest.  I noticed in the post the blogger said she would eventually like to tinker with adding psyllium husk and reducing the starch level, so my first go around with this recipe, I did just that...but I wasn't totally "on" with my proportions.  Since it was my cheat meal, and I was willing to deal with the starch content, I decided to not be too concerned with the starch level and simply "improve" (IMO) on the original crust's texture by adding my new favorite ingredient, psyllium husk powder.  I love the "chew" this ingredient adds to GF breads.

Well, after some trials, the following recipe is an alternative to Zen Belly's recipe that I've come up with it...and I think it's amazeballs.  It's light, it's chewy, it's got some crisp to it, it rises beautifully, it stays thin crust, is easy to spread/shape, and has baking properties of "normal" bread.  Let me know what you think!  And, NO NASTY XANTHAN GUM!

Gluten Free/Grain Free Pizza Crust (nom, nom, nom, nom...)

• 2 1/4 tsp. yeast (1 packet)
• 1 Tbs. raw honey
• 1/2 cup of very warm (not scalding hot) water
  

• 3/4 cup almond flour
• 3/4 cup tapioca starch
• 2 Tbs. psyllium husk powder
• 1/5 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. kosher/sea salt
  

• 1 Tbs. olive or coconut oil or Ghee
• 1 egg white (slightly whipped)
• 1.5 tsp. apple cider vinegar

Directions:
In a liquid measuring cup, combine the warm water, yeast, and honey.  Stir until all is dissolved, and set aside to activate and become foamy (appx 10min).

In a stand mixer, or stand alone bowl with hand mixer, add the dry ingredient.  Quickly mix to incorporate.  Add oil, egg white, and vinegar to the yeast mixture.  Stir to combine, and then add to the dry ingredient in mixing bowl.  Mix all ingredients together.  The mixture will be VERY wet, but this is necessary because the psyllium husk will "gel" over time causing the mixture to thicken substantially.  Add pizza dough to a greased bowl, and set in a warm spot to rise appx. 1-1.5 hours.

 very wet after just mixing

much firmer after rising for a little over an hour

risen dough turned out onto parchment lined baking sheet.  See those bubbles and texture?!

Simply use your hands to spread the dough between parchment paper and plastic wrap (I used Press N' Seal") into your desired shape.  The plastic wrap will peel right off.

 (The crust needs to be pre-baked before loading with toppings.  Do so at a fairly high temp like 425F until the crust browns over.  You do not want to under-bake this crust.  The pysllium husk keeps the bread VERY moist.)

Once pre-baked, load it up with yumminess, pop it back in a very high heat oven, and finish off with a broil on top!  I like my pizzas well done, but I can assure you the crust was NOT over-cooked, was still VERY "foldable", but yet had a great crunch on that outer ring.

SO.  GOOD.