This pizza dough has a few unconventional ingredients, from a keto perspective. The idea behind this pizza dough is that it is a flexible…like the kind you can drape over your hand and throw in the air. To do that, you need gluten…which is basically the protein part of the wheat grain.
Vegan and vegetarian ketonians are familiar with seitan…which is a non-meat meatloaf made out of wheat protein (gluten). Seitan is actually a Japanese word, meaning the protein of wheat. If you take flour, and continuously wash it, removing it’s carb component, you would be left with a doughy ball of gluten. Thus, the name “satanhead pizza” was born!
So here’s the key ingredient needed:
Which doesn’t have too many carbs relative to flour
So, first start with measuring 250 mL warm water
Transfer a couple tablespoons of water to small bowl, and add 8 grams yeast and 1/4 teaspoon sugar
Mix the yeast in with water and sugar, to start activating it
Meanwhile weigh 180 grams almond flour
And 70 grams wheat gluten
Blend almond flour and wheat gluten in a bowl. By this time, the yeast should be activated and very puffy
Add yeast mixture to almond flour mixture, together with one teaspoon of salt and one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
With a spoon, start blending all the ingredients in the bowl. Slowly add the remainder of the water in the measuring cup, but being mindful that you may not need all of it. Just add enough water until you get sufficient moisture to firm a ball of dough you can knead. The result should be a dough as shown in photo below. Note the “stringy” grains, which is formed by the gluten in the dough.
Start kneading the dough
After kneading for about 10 minutes, the dough becomes smoother as the gluten is worked
Put the ball of dough in the bowl (note my thumbprint indentation at top)
Cover bowl with towel and let rise, about one hour
After dough has risen, you will note thumbprint is gone
Knead dough again for about one minute. One quarter of the dough was put in a cake pan (for the pizza), and 3/4 of the dough was put in a loaf pan
Here’s a photo that shows how flexible the pizza dough was. Very easy to work with
A towel was draped over the pans, and they were left to rise (about one hour). This is what they looked like when risen
While the dough was rising, some guanciale (cured pork jowl) was sliced
Guanciale lardons were cut and put in a frying pan
When the lardons were crispy, they were removed from the pan, leaving grease in the pan
Two tablespoons of tomato paste was added to the hot grease
As well as salt, pepper and some dried rosemary were added to the tomato paste mixture to make a porky tomato sauce
The tomato sauce was then spread on the risen pizza dough
Followed by the crispy lardons
The pizza was then baked in preheated oven 350 deg F for 15 minutes
The bottom of the crust was perfect, and looked exactly like any other pizza crust made with wheat flour…when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore (doesn’t the crust look like the moon?!)
Shredded cheese was then added to the pizza, and it went back in the oven for about five minutes
The pizza looked and smelled like a typical pizza made with wheat flour
The dough had large bubbles and flakes, just like a wheat pizza dough. And the taste of the yeast in the pizza also seemed equivalent to a normal wheat crust
The loaf was also baked after it got to rise (twice it’s original volume)
The bread baked for 50 minutes at 350 deg F
Makes a nice loaf
Side shot
Bottom of loaf
The bread is quite firm, like any other wheat loaf. And the crumb is well risen with a nice fresh baked bread aroma
I think Dino would approve of this recipe…what do you think?