A wonderful homemade pizza crust

I was searching through my kitchen last night trying to figure out what to make for dinner when I thought of the idea of pizza, but I didn't have a frozen gluten-free pizza or a pizza crust mix and the last time I tried making pizza crust from scratch, it turned out to be the most awful-tasting thing ever. I went on a search for gluten-free pizza crust recipes and came across many people who raved about this recipe or that recipe. I took a look at the various ingredients and some of them called for unflavored gelatin. "I don't keep that in the house!" I thought. On to the next recipe, which called for unflavored sparkling water. "Really? That's not one of our household staples either!" On to the next recipe idea. I had all the ingredients, but really? FOUR egg whites? There had to be something a little simpler. So, I kept searching until I found this recipe*.

I substituted Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix, since that's what I had here at home, but I kept all the other ingredients the same. I don't own a pizza stone, but I used a pizza pan, or one could easily use even a cookie sheet. I just poured a very small amount of olive oil onto the pan, spread it around with my fingers, and then put the dough onto the pan. You could spread the dough with your fingers, but, although it said to knead until not sticky, I never found that state of non-stickiness. So, I sprayed a piece of waxed paper with g-f cooking spray and used the waxed paper to press the dough evenly into the pizza pan.

We topped our pizza with g-f sauce and cheese, but you could get creative and top with veggies, crumbled ground beef, or any of your other favorite toppings. Just be sure that if you choose pepperoni, you do your research for gluten-free pepperoni.

*Here's the recipe in print from the site I linked to above:

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp. yeast
1 1/3 c. milk (soy, cow, or rice)
1 tsp. sugar

2 1/3 c. Gluten-free all purpose baking mix (I used Pamela's baking & pancake mix)
2 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp salt

2 tsp. olive oil
2 tsp. cider vinegar

Cooking Instructions:
1. Put your pizza stone into the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Heat the milk in the microwave so that it is warm. Combine the milk with the sugar and yeast in a small mixing bowl. Let your liquid mixture sit and “proof” while you get the dry ingredients ready.

3. Combine the flour mix, salt and xanthan gum.

4. Add the oil and vinegar to the yeast mixture, which should have some air bubbles by now. Then add all of liquid ingredients into the flour mixture and mix well with your hands.

5. Place the dough onto a heavily floured rolling board (I use rice flour) and knead the dough for several minutes, working in the rice flour until you dough is pliable and not sticky.

6. Roll the dough out into a circle that is approximately 1/8″ thick. Move the crust to the hot pizza stone and bake at 400 degrees until the top of the crust gets just a hint of color.

7. Remove the crust from the oven. Add all of your toppings, and then put back in the oven to bake until your toppings look well done (e.g. cheese starts to brown).

Yields: 8 large slices