If you’re like me and you had heard about cauliflower pizza crusts you probably thought, yeah right. But sometimes necessity creates a situation where you will try new and different things. I needed a yeast and sugar free pizza crust for my son Brad, who is on a Candida diet. I also liked the fact that this is grain free. That means it will work for a Paleo and Primal diet.
I found Carlalyn’s recipe for Cauliflower Pizza on Gluten Free Happy Tummy. So I thought I would give it a try and at the same time participate in the Adopt a Gluten Free Blogger event. Kate from Eat Recycle Repeat is hosting this event this month.
So I started with Carlalyn’s recipe but I changed it up to suit our families tastes.
Here is what I changed:
I added in a large whole egg, bumped up the almond flour to 1/3 cup, added in 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of toasted onion powder and 1 teaspoon of Italian Seasonings.
It’s really important that you squeeze all of the water out of the cauliflower. This will make a big difference.
I pre-baked the crust and then for the toppings we had a little tomato sauce, shredded spinach and some chicken and turkey roasted red pepper sausage that had no sugar. Also no cheese of any kind. Not even Daiya since that is not part of the candida diet.
When the crust was brown, I pulled the pizza out of the oven and cut it up into slices. I didn’t tell Brad anything, just asked him to give it a try since it didn’t have any cheese. I didn’t say a word about the cauliflower.
He loved it! He ate the entire pizza, well minus the slice I ate. He said it tasted like there was cheese on it. I think adding in the almond flour does that.
I can’t tell you how excited I am. I’m not sure we’ll go back to pizza any other way. It tastes great. What a great way to eat pizza and have an easy, healthy, gluten-free life!
I hope you will not wait for necessity to give it a try. I challenge you to make this pizza with your favorite toppings and report back to let me know what you thought. But for me if something passes the Brad test, well then anyone will eat it. He’s a very picky teenager. So if you have one of those in your house, I’ve got you covered.
this looks and sounds fantastic! gonna try it tonight 🙂 thanks so much for another great idea/recipe!
Moriah it's great if you are willing to just give it a try. I know you will. Did you try it?
Yippee on your success! Always great when you can get a healthy recipe that the picky family loves. 😉 This one looks fantastic, Diane!
Shirley
Shirley you know how I like to hide good food for my picky son but this one was perfect! Let me know if you give it a try.
OK… I am one of those 'cauliflower pizza skeptics'! But I am going to try your version. Thanks Diane!
Hi Diane! Oh my gosh, YAY! I’m so glad your family enjoyed the pizza! Thank you so much for sharing my recipe! It’s funny, I didn’t tell my parents there was cauliflower in it at first either, and they loved it! haha cauliflower is the sneaky healthy kitchen ninja! 🙂 Have a great day!
Hi Diane! Oh my gosh YAY! I'm so glad you and your family enjoyed the pizza! Thank you so much for sharing my recipe! It's funny, I didn't tell my parents that there was cauliflower in it at first either, and they loved it!! Haha Cauliflower is the sneaky healthy kitchen ninja! haha Have a great day!
Caralyn it's easy to hide the good ingredients in here!
Oh wow, Diane, I've wanted to try this but every recipe I've seen called for cheese. Love that you made it cheeseless!
Alta it's a great alternative, you'll love it.
I bought cauliflower today and knew that I wanted to find a recipe for Caul. Pizza. Wouldn't you know? My friend Diane had the very recipe I needed!!! Thank you!
Thank you for this recipe. I tried it tonight and it tasted amazing! I didn't miss the regular pizza crust at all!
Thank you for sharing! What did you top your pizza with? Did you tell anyone it was a cauliflower crust?
Diane:
I'm looking forward to trying this, and in fact am planning to make it for my girlfriend tomorrow night, but I was a little confused by the recipe.
1) Do we need Carlalyn's recipe in hand to then be able to figure out how you changed it, or can we just ignore Carlalyn's and use yours? Is yours complete in and of itself? I ask because the link you provided no longer goes to a pizza recipe. Here, I just this minute found the new link for it: http://glutenfreehappytummy.blogspot.com/2013/01/…
2) Please, what does "crumb" mean? How fine is "crumb"? Do I just use the ricing/shredding blade at the top of the food processor's chamber, or do I let the cauliflower get chopped into a fine meal by the processor's lower "knife" blades? Carlalyn seems to use the ricing/shredding blade.
3) Do you think it would make any difference whether we use almond flour or almond meal? I think, but am not sure, that they're identical products except "meal" implies a slightly coarser grind. Comments?
Thanks for any comments. We often rice cauliflower and steam it until it softens and sweetens a bit (just a minute or two, usually) and eat it as a low-carb, low-cal rice substitute. Delicious.
Regards!
Joe, I did start with that recipe you mentioned and then made the few changes I shared. They were not many which is why I didn't just copy her recipe. Use the food processor blade that sits on the bottom of the processor. When you pulse the blade you will end up with the crumbles. I like to make it fine and I find that blade works really well and it's easier. Again I like almond flour and the texture. Enjoy!
Thanks so much for your reply, Diane. Did you "add" a whole egg to the two egg whites in Caralyn's recipe, or did you "replace" the two egg whites with a whole egg? I know you said "add", but I was confused because another website I found cited your recipe and interpreted it as "replaced".
Here: http://pinterest.com/pin/50947039506460364/
Also, I note that you say to squeeze the water out of the cauliflower. Obviously, you mean to squeeze the juice out of the cauliflower. Wonder if there's some way to press it out so that the nutritious juice can be used for something else, but I can't think of a convenient way offhand, without having a cider press handy!
Pardon me for obsessing over the details, but I'm a lousy cook so I don't have any feel for what latitude with the ingredients I can use in interpreting a recipe. Best for me to start out with exactly what you recommend.
Thanks, Diane. By the way, we make cauliflower rice at least a couple of times a week, since we're low carb dieters. We just use the ricing/shredding food-processing blade, and then steam a large bowl of the rice-sized pieces for 1-3 minutes, by adding a little water to the bowl, covering it with a plate, and putting it in the microwave. Obviously, once the cauliflower has been chopped into rice-sized pieces it's going to steam very, very quickly, so we have to stay on top of it (try it every 30-60 seconds) so that it doesn't overcook. Super low-cal and super low-carb. We use it as a bed of rice for other dishes. Works great. So simple to make.
Diane:
Did you _replace_ her two egg whites with your whole egg, or did you _add_ your whole egg to her two egg whites?
To put it another way, does the recipe use three egg whites plus a yolk, or does it only use one egg white plus a yolk?
Thanks.
One whole egg works well. I like the color it adds.
Well, I made it 3 times since I wrote to you. It's got a pleasant "moist bread" aspect to it, although the surfaces and particularly the almond meal (we didn't have finer flour available) got golden and a little bit of toasted-bread taste to it. In other words, like very lightly toasted bread that's gooey in the middle. Wasn't bad at all, and we both welcomed it because we NEVER eat grains these days. I like cauliflower, so I wouldn't have minded if it tasted like cauliflower, but there really was no cauliflower taste at all.
All in all, a welcome throwback to having a little warm bread in our diet, and we both looked forward to it each of the three nights. I'll probably make it again tomorrow night.
The pizza slices had to be eaten with forks, because they didn't hold together sufficiently to lift them in the air and eat them like a slice of pizza. Even though I cooked the crust as long as 20 mins. If you're accomplishing a one-hand lift of the slice to the mouth, I'd like to hear more about how you think you've created such miracles.
Joe thank you for sharing that with me. If you want the pizza cooked a little more leave it in on the first cooking time a little longer. That being said mine has always been softer than a grain crust but again enjoyable.
Where is the recipe? 🙁
I'm confused the recipe I found on Caralyn's blog doesn't mention almond flour but mentions grinding up hazelnuts to a flour. And it mentions 3 egg whites, not just 2.
So did you replace the Hazelnuts with almond flour? Is it 3 egg whites + 1 egg. 2 egg whites + 1 egg. or just 1 whole egg??
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe