WRITTEN JANUARY 2023
Gluten-free Pizza
A gluten-free diet doesn’t mean a pizza-free diet.
I went on a mission to make a gluten-free pizza that doesn’t taste gluten-free. Turns out, you can even get a spotty char on the crust!
Caputo Fioreglut flour
This is not a paid ad – Caputo Fioreglut is the best gluten-free pizza flour on the market and is a crowd-favourite amongst gluten-free bakers. It’s certified gluten-free by the Ministry of Health of Italy (Ministero della Salute), widely available and if you can’t find it locally, it’s on Amazon!
Too legit to quit
Caputo is a mill in Naples, Italy that produces flour specifically for pizza. I have made hundreds of pizzas using their pizza flours – huge fan here. If anyone could develop a gluten-free flour that makes a mean pizza, it would be Caputo.
Can I use a different GF flour?
Of course, babe! Your pizza will turn out differently than mine because the flour you use – flour being the main ingredient of pizza – plays a major role in the final result you will get. That being said, having pizza is better than no pizza.
Gluten-free Pizza Dough Recipe
30 minutes hands-on effort
Prepare dough 1-3 days ahead
This recipe was developed to scale – multiply all ingredients for more pizza!
Ingredients for 2 dough balls (300g each)
| 320g | Caputo Fioreglut flour (100%) |
| 2g | Instant yeast (0.6%) |
| 256g | Water, room temperature (80%) |
| 10g | Salt (3%) |
| 16g | Extra-virgin olive oil (5%) |
| + | Chickpea flour or fine cornmeal |
Just like in my Intro Dough recipe using regular flour, we’re going to let time do all the work for us. Using a small amount of yeast for a slow ferment creates greater flavour in the dough.
Want to make sourdough gluten-free pizza? Done deal1
Wondering what the percentages are about? Check it2
5 minutes of work
1. Mix
Starting with water, use a kitchen scale to measure each ingredient directly into a large mixing bowl. Add yeast (or GF starter, if using) and stir until dissolved.
Add flour and salt and mix by hand, or with a mixer, for 2 minutes until well-combined. Add extra-virgin olive oil and knead in the bowl for 1 minute to incorporate.
Yeast does the work
Takes around 16 hours if your room temperature hovers around 28°C, or 24 hours if you’re in a colder climate. This also depends on how active your yeast is.
2. Bulk ferment
Cover the dough and let the yeast do its thing! This step, called bulk fermentation (BF), starts as soon as you bring yeast and flour together. Move on to the next step when your dough has doubled in size.
- Do not rush this step! Give the yeast time and your future, pizza-eating-self will be glad you waited.
- Don’t stress if you don’t see anything happening for the first 6-10 hours, especially if you already tested your yeast to make sure it’s active. Yeast grows exponentially, so it really picks up the pace after it’s had time to multiply.
How long does BF take?
The time it’ll take mainly depends on how active your yeast is and your room temperature. Some people with very active yeast have reported that their dough doubled in just 6 hours!
Your turn again!
15 minutes of work
3. Dough-balling
Once the dough has doubled, it’s time to portion your dough balls. Grease your hands with extra-virgin olive oil to prevent the dough from sticking, then divide your dough into 300g pieces. To form a dough ball, place a piece of dough in the palm of your hand and use your other hand to pat the dough into a round, hockey puck-shaped. Place dough balls into lightly-greased air-tight containers with enough room for the dough to increase in size further.
- We want it air-tight, so that your dough can keep its moisture. If it’s drafty, it’s going to dry out on top – not ideal!
- Dividing and shaping the dough will deflate it and this is a good thing. The dough will continue to rise in the fridge.
Why not use a dough tray?
Individual containers are easier to remove gluten-free dough from. I also like that you can make a large batch of dough and take out the amount of dough balls you need each day.
I personally love the Pyrex 2-cup capacity glass containers (not an affiliate link!)
Fridge does the work
4. Cold ferment
Transfer your dough to the fridge. You can make pizzas with your dough balls whenever you like from this point, but I highly recommend letting it continue maturing in the fridge for 1 or 2 more days for more delicious flavour to develop.
How long can dough stay in the fridge for?
Fermentation is a process that keeps on giving! These days, we mainly do it for flavour development, but it was traditionally used as a method of preservation. I have used GF dough up to 8 days after starting the cold ferment. No issues, only flavour.
5 minutes of work
5. Pizza Day!
Use a spatula to loosen the dough balls from the side of their containers. Place each dough ball on a flat surface (plate, tray or directly on your countertop), leaving space in-between. Keep dough balls covered (I use a bowl to cover each dough ball) and allow to come to room temperature:
- 2 hours, if you’re in a warm climate
- 4 hours, if it’s cold where you are
30 minutes before it’s time to make pizza, preheat your pizza oven to 400°C / 750°F stone temperature. (If using a home oven, check this out!)
Making your pizza
From this point on, be gentle with the dough to keep air in the crust. When you treat your dough tenderly, it returns the favour with a tender crust. Let’s go!
Step 1: With dry hands, generously sprinkle chickpea flour or fine cornmeal over the top of your dough ball. Sprinkle more flour onto a dough scraper or spatula and use it to gently dislodge the dough.
Step 2: Dust your countertop with more flour, then transfer your dough ball to the counter so that the top, flour-coated side is facing down and the bottom faces up. Coat the bottom of the dough ball with flour.
Step 3: Flip the dough ball so that the topside faces up. Work from the centre of the dough ball to gradually press the dough into an evenly flat pizza base, leaving 1cm of a raised border for the crust. A 300g dough ball will stretch out to become an 11” to 12” pizza.
Step 4: If your pizza base starts to stick to the counter, use your dough scraper or spatula to loosen the base with more flour.
Step 5: Dress the pizza with your favourite toppings then transfer pizza to a lightly-floured launch peel. Brush off excess flour, then launch your pizza into a pizza oven preheated to 400°C / 750°F stone temp. Bake at high-flame, rotating the pizza every 20-30 seconds to evenly brown the crust. The pizza will be ready in 60-90 seconds.
To bake pizza in a home oven, this is the best way that doesn’t require pizza-specific equipment!
Q&As
1 Can I use this recipe to make gluten-free sourdough pizza?
Biiig YES! I tested my recipe with a GF sourdough starter and loved the resulting flavour. First, you’ll need a GF sourdough starter. I followed this straightforward guide at Vanilla and Bean. Mine is made of buckwheat flour and Bob Red Mill’s AP 1-1 gluten free baking flour.
Once your GF starter is active, give it a 1:1 feed and when it’s peaked, mix in 32g starter (10% of total flour) instead of yeast to form your dough. Continue with the rest of the recipe as-is!
I found that my GF starter moves slower than my rye starter, so the bulk ferment took 12 hours to reach double for me at 27°C.
2 What are the percentages?
These are called baker’s percentages. They tell you how much of all the other ingredients to use, relative to the amount of flour. This makes it easy to scale baking recipes up or down. For example, if you wanted to make 3 dough balls with this recipe:
Current recipe makes 2 dough balls, so 1.5x flour = 480g flour
Then multiply the total flour against the percentages of other ingredients:
Instant yeast (0.6% of 480g) = 2.88g
Water (80%) = 384g
Salt (3%) = 14.4g
Extra-virgin olive oil (5%) = 24g
Gluten-free v.s. regular pizza dough
These are the main differences I wish I had known when I started out making gluten-free pizza. Knowing these differences will give you a head-start if you’ve made pizza before:
Simpler to make
Forget developing gluten strength, you barely have to knead and no need for stretch and folds! GF dough is also almost impossible to overferment. I tested letting the bulk ferment go past-peak (to the point that it started sliding down the edges of the bowl) and – to my surprise – got incredibly tasty GF pizza from it.
EVOO is our friend
Gluten-free dough is sticky! Without a gluten network forming a smooth balloon over the dough, you’ll need to use extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) to coat your hands before making dough balls. A lightly-oiled dough scraper helps to get the dough out of the containers you use for bulk ferment and cold ferment.
Stretching takes longer
Imagine the way a child would pat-out a pizza base using playdoh – that’s basically how to stretch GF dough! GF dough rips quickly if you try using gravity to stretch it (of course, I had to try!) However, after getting the pizza onto the peel you can give it a delicate final-stretch to make it slightly bigger.
Leopard Crust Pizza 
Your pizzas look so good! You handle dough naturally calm! It seems that to bake and to cook it’s extremely easy. Yes I found this article helpful and that it would be very helpful to follow you. Thanks
Thank you for taking the time to leave such a kind comment! I’m really happy to know that you found this helpful! 🙏
Thank you so much for this great recipe – your step by step process is zen-like. I just started my Bulk Ferment for this GF dough – so excited! No par-baking! I’m only on day 2 of my sour dough starter – can’t wait to try the sour dough pizza as well!
I’m so glad you found my recipe helpful and relaxing! I hope your GF dough turned out great and that your starter’s grown up to be strong and helpful. 🥰
Hi, I am curious if you have used the caputo yeast as well for your recipe. I assume it would work a little differently than the instant? Would I just bloom it first or not recommended for use? Thanks!
Hey Steve, I have used Caputo Active Dry Yeast before for this recipe! In Step 1, water is the first ingredient in the bowl followed by yeast which is stirred until dissolved – effectively blooming it. 🙂 Just make sure the water you’re using isn’t too cold and you’re gold! Hope this helps and happy baking!
Hi
what oven are you using? I use a roccbox and a Solo pi pime using gas for both , 750 will not cook the base with any color, if I use launch at 900 the base gets color , and it cooks very fast , but it is very soft(but cooked)
thanks Gregg
Hi Gregg, I use a Gozney Roccbox and Dome. I always cook with a min. stone temp of 750 and cook using the lowest flame setting. Rotate the pizza 180° once you start to see the crust nearest to the flame getting some colour. Continue to bake, then rotate a couple more times to get a nice golden brown crust and cooked base. Hope this helps!
why the chickpea flour instead of caputo , does it add color or flavor?
Hi Gregg, thank you for your question! You’re right on the money: I prefer using chickpea flour or fine cornmeal to coat the dough because it gives a more golden-brown colour (white flours like Caputo fioreglut or rice flour will give an ashy, greyish-brown crust) as well as added flavour.
Thank you so much for this recipe. I have used it many times with good success.
Question; any tips to get a firmer crust? I love the springy crust, it has great flavor but I wouldn’t mind the texture of a crunchy crust. Would more or less hydration change this?
FYI bulk fermentation is essentially done in 6-8 hours at the moment in a humid and hot Sydney summer.
Hey Tate, I’m so grateful to hear you’ve had success with this recipe and thanks for the timing note, I love knowing! For a crunchy finish, you can bake it at a lower temperature for longer. Around 320-350C stone temp for 3-5 minutes at lowest flame. For an even crunchier finish, you could also try switching the flame off for the last minute or two of the bake. Hope this helps and have a lovely Summer!
Hey, quick question… do we need to cover the dough during the BF stage?
Hi John, yes! Please cover the dough during bulk ferment to avoid it drying out. 🙂 Happy baking!
thanks 👍 with just a dry tea towel or something sealed shut?
hi, do you cover with a tea towel or completely air tight? Thanks x
Hey Jo! A damp tea-towel is fine. The main thing is to prevent the top surface of the dough from drying and forming a skin.
This recipe was right on the money for me. I did a cold ferment for 2 days and baked in my Dome. Your guide on shaping is invaluable, thank you! I made both Gluten and GF pizzas and tried both, if I had not shaped the GF dough myself I would have never known it was gluten free! If you use your Dome with wood, do you have any tips on getting the temp higher? The highest I could get it was 650F. Either way I was so pleased with the result that I have a triple batch in BF now for my Book Group girls tomorrow!
Hi Linda, I’m so happy to hear you had fun my GF recipe and got a result just like gluten dough! Typically, wood-fire takes longer than gas to preheat any oven. I’d do what you’re already doing but try preheating for longer than you had previously done to get the temp higher. Hope this helps!
Hi, thank you so much for putting this together, can’t wait to try it. I would like to make 4 dough balls, so would that be multiplied by 2.5? Also, I will be using dry active yeast, is that a 1:1 ratio to instant? Thank you!!
Hey Fab, to make 4 dough balls please multiply all quantities 2x as the original recipe makes 2 dough balls. 1:1 ratio of active dry yeast to instant is perfect! Happy baking. 🙂
Can’t wait to try this and going to give it a go this week. Been searching for a recipe that uses this flour as we have found it is the best. By the looks it seems that this is a neopolitan style? Any tips or techniques to make it more like a NY style? My dream would be somewhere between NY and neo if you know what I’m saying
Hey Nick! To make it more NY-style, you can add 2% honey or sugar (6.4g based on the default measurements) and bake it at 300 – 350C (575 – 650F) in a pizza oven for about 4-5 minutes. It’s a lower temp bake than Neapolitan-style which is what gives you that nice, crispy NY-style finish. 🙂 In case you’re using a home oven (instead of a pizza oven), I made a reel for that here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwXrrpxsg9w/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
My dough is the fridge as we speak, smells so good. I do not have chickpea flour and not sure the corn meal I have is fine or not, is there anything else I can use to shape it? I have used parchment paper before (with a little flour so it didn’t stick) and actually left it on the parchment while it baked. Just wondering what you think?
Hey Colleen, hope your GF pizze turned out well! Cornmeal works even if it’s not fine. However, you get a much better end result with fine cornmeal.