Paleo Pizza…? Yes Please!

What better to do on a long weekend than spend it cooking! Maggie’s birthday was on Friday so we spent a lot of the weekend celebrating! Friday was date night and dinner just the two of us. Saturday started out with a birthday WOD led by her brother Joe at Stoneway Crossift – it was a tough one with shoulder-to-overheads, burpees and hill runs. That evening a group of 11 family and friends rode the Seattle Great Wheel, followed by happy hour.

To continue the celebration on Sunday, we decided to make a recipe Maggie has been dying to try for months – a pizza from Against All Grain (here’s the link). Maggie and I love pizza but have tried a few grainless crust recipes and have been disappointed. Most of those used almond or coconut flour but this one calls for cashew flour, which is why we wanted to try it. A lot of the paleo pizzas out there go crustless and are being called “meatzas” but it’s just not the same. I want a crust!

The recipe from Against All Grains called for parchment paper so we finally picked some up after literally months of forgetting (early onset forgetfulness I guess!). Needless to say, we were super excited to try this recipe out.

Here’s the recipe from Against All Grain with my suggestions added in.

Ingredients

¾ cup whole raw cashews (or 1 cup cashew flour)

3 tablespoons almond flour

¼ cup coconut flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

dash teaspoon garlic granules

2 large eggs

2 tablespoons almond milk

½ teaspoon apple cider vinegar

2½ tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon cold water

1 tablespoon fresh parsley (we didn’t add this)

2 tablespoons fresh basil (or this)

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a food processor, pulse the cashews until a fine flour has formed

3. Add in the almond flour, coconut flour, baking soda, salt and garlic granules, then process the mixture for 30 seconds.

4. Add eggs, almond milk, apple cider vinegar, olive oil and water and process for another 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and pulse a few more times until you have a very smooth dough (We had to scrape the sides of our food processor several times because this dough really likes to stick).

5. Add the parsley and basil, and pulse two more times to roughly chop and incorporate the herbs (we skipped this step because we didn’t use parsley or basil).

6. Let the dough rest for 2 minutes to let the coconut flour absorb some of the liquid.

7. *It’s a fairly wet dough, so don’t be alarmed that it doesn’t come together into a dense ball like most doughs (It reminded me of a thick waffle or pancake batter).

8. Sprinkle a piece of parchment paper with a little almond flour, then turn the dough out onto the counter. Sprinkle a little more flour on the top of the ball of dough, then place another piece of parchment on top.

9. Use your hands to flatten the ball into a disc, then lightly roll out the dough into a circle that is ¼ inch thick (we didn’t roll the center of the ball out enough so the outsides were thin while the center remained too thick).

10. Remove the top piece of parchment and carefully by gently tugging from one corner. Slide the other piece with the crust onto a pizza pan.

11. *If you can’t remove the parchment without taking half of the dough with it, just bake the crust with the top piece intact. You can remove it once the crust has baked and before you add the toppings (We had to do this – there was no possible way we could remove the top piece of parchment paper without mangling the crust).

12. Bake the crust for 12 minutes, or until it has puffed up and is golden brown around the edges (ours needed a few more minutes, so yours may too).

13. Top with pizza sauce and other toppings (we used uncured ham, mushrooms, olives and cheese) and bake for another 15 minutes (probably add a few more minutes).

When we took our pizza out of the oven it looked amazing (you see the picture, don’t you think it looks good?) and smelled great as well. It cut well and the pieces stayed together but the center of the crust remained too soft. I think this was mostly our fault because we didn’t roll the center of the dough out enough. The outer edges of the crust that was almost perfect –it really reminded me of “real” pizza. Anyway, we will definitely make this again – and you should too!