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Jump to RecipeWho out there would say pizza is the number one item you miss the most on a ketogenic diet? If you’ve tried fathead pizza dough, you know you get pretty close to a good pizza. And, with my recipe, I think it might just be a toss up. But I’ll let you decide.
The Challenge of Baking without Gluten and Standard Flour
I think we all know baking without gluten and standard white flour poses its challenges. It doesn’t rise as well, and it just doesn’t get that chewy texture of a French baguette or a juicy garlic ball glazed with butter. Boy, doesn’t that sound pretty good about now?!
But when making a ketogenic pizza dough, we’re always looking for a way to get in fat (hopefully it’s mostly good fat), as well as make the actual bread part of the crust taste pretty good. Then, there’s the crust itself. We need to get at least a little bit of a crispy crust that will hold its shape. (Most of us still use our hands to eat pizza, right?) So, for these reasons, I began to experiment with adding a few extra ingredients in the dough mix.
Experimenting
My first modification to fathead pizza dough, which is an earlier post seen on my Instagram and Facebook page, includes adding a little bit of coconut flour to the dough mix, and that does help the crust keep its shape. It wasn’t as limp with all that cheese that kept the crust from actually drying out. But, I still didn’t feel like the bread part of the crust had much rise or flavor.
Then I tried adding pork rinds to the pizza crust, as I had seen other bloggers were beginning to add it to their recipes. It makes sense. We get the satiating effect with a little extra fat in the crust, and ultimately, we will have fewer carbs per serving when we add less almond flour and those 0-net-carb pork rinds. And, those little rinds will soak up any bit of moisture from the cheese that our previous crusts may have lacked. So, when I decided to experiment, it probably took me about three tries before I was fairly satisfied with the results.
However, the real test often comes with convincing my husband who doesn’t need to be on a strict ketogenic diet. Keto pizza was one thing he just has a hard time eating, even if us keto eaters have improved upon recipes with (full) fathead dough, adding pork rinds, or even incorporating ground chicken and parmesan cheese as a pizza dough base. He says that traditional pizza crust still doesn’t taste like cheese or seasoned with much else to hide the flavor of the almond flour base. He’s absolutely right, and that brings us back to our earlier thoughts on making this lifestyle change of removing grains from our diet. Going from a standard white flour or even gluten-free based crust (which by the way, only uses other fillers that don’t reduce the carbs by much) or any bread for that matter, makes the low-carb and keto switch a more difficult transition for some.
So, my latest experiment with making pizza includes actually reducing the amount of typical cheese used in fathead dough, as well as replacing the recommended mozzarella cheese with organic raw pasture-raised cheese, which is optional. I also add several ingredients that allow the dough to rise, and I prefer using just the egg white versus a whole egg to get a cleaner taste in the crust. Now, give this a try, and let me know what you think. My husband thinks this a far greater improvement over other keto pizza recipes we’ve tried.
Now, if you’re asking, “Why the raw cheese over regular mozzarella?” The answer is that the extra fat from the raw cheese will: 1.) keep what cheese that is briefly microwaved from scorching, and 2.) add more moisture to your dough. Standard mozzarella is oftentimes considered a low-fat cheese because it’s made of part skim milk and doesn’t leave grease all over your pizza as a topping. But, in the dough, especially if you’ve using coconut flour, I recommend leaving some of that fat in there. The coconut flour will soak it up.
Oh, and should you decide to make bread sticks, you can add up to two tablespoons of coconut flour to the dough mix, and bake it for roughly 15 minutes so that your bread sticks remain soft. (I’ll be sharing soon a different recipe for pretzels that is almost dairy free.) Then, pair it with some melted butter and garlic or more pizza sauce, and you’ve got a tasty appetizer to go along with your pizza!
If you get a chance to try my recipe, please leave a friendly comment or rating below. I’d love to hear your thoughts, and as always, I appreciate your support, as I provide this site nearly ad free!