One-Ingredient Sourdough Pizza Crust

Pizza is a favorite around here. We usually only make it on ‘family night’ – the evenings we watch a family movie or play board games. We’ve tried having Coconut Fried Chicken and Indian Stuffed Peppers in its place, but for the kids to consider it an authentic family night, it’s gotta be pizza.

If you’re a regular reader at Whole Intentions you might recall my obsession interest in making recipes that are nearly all sourdough starter as in my Basic Sourdough Bread recipe. I decided to try this approach with pizza crust too and I have been very happy with the results. Why? Because this crust has one ingredient. Okay, two if you get technical. Fresh ground wheat and water. Yep – it’s all sourdough starter. Pretty simple, huh!

I’m also excited because Travis agreed to be a guinea pig for this recipe and eat some of it. For those of you new to Whole Intentions, that statement might not make sense. My husband Travis is gluten-free and also on a candida diet. If you’re familiar with either of those diets, you’ll know that wheat is a BIG no-no as it contains gluten and starch.

So why am I forcing my beloved husband to be a guinea pig and eat pizza crust made with wheat? Well, first of all, trust me when I say I didn’t have to coerce him, kicking and screaming, to take a bite of pizza. He willingly obliged.

He became my guinea pig because of some interesting reading I’d come across about sourdough and how it breaks down gluten and starches. This made me curious. Travis readily notices if he eats wheat. He doesn’t suffer gastrointestinal issues but rather muscle stiffness and soreness that limits his mobility. I’ve read several times now that some gluten-free people have been able to eat sourdough without reacting to it. I was interested to see if Travis was one of them.

We’ve made sourdough pizza twice now. The first time he took several bites and the second time he had a small slice. I’m happy to report that he did not notice symptoms either time. (I’m inserting a happy little squeal here!) Although we still limit grains because we want to keep candida at bay, this has the potential to open a lot of doors for him.

I’d love to hear what you think of it.

Sourdough Pizza Crust (casein-free, egg-free, nut-free, yeast-free, sugar-free)

sourdough starter (I told you – it’s just one ingredient)

Directions:
1. About 6 hours before you want to bake your crust, feed your sourdough starter with fresh ground flour (I used my ultra quiet Whisper Mill) and water. The hardest part of this entire recipe is getting your starter to the right consistency. I like to have mine the thickness between cake batter and cookie dough. (There, that wasn’t too hard, was it. )

2. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and spray your pizza pan with olive oil.

3. With a spoon, spread the sourdough starter out to the size you want your crust. The starter barely spreads when baking. I leave about a 1″ space from the edge. Bake the crust for about 10 min.

4. Remove the crust from the oven and add your pizza sauce and desired toppings. Bake at 500 degrees for 10 minutes or until done.