I continue to be pressured by my own restrictions, as well as others looking for recipes that are free of many of the common allergens, including eggs and nuts. I wasn’t sure how I was going to replace the eggs with the flax seed meal. My husband even said that he was “scared of this one”. In fact, he thought it was going to taste like cardboard when I told him what the ingredients were.

We were all pleasantly surprised. The crust was a bit crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. It held together very well. And the crust had a very nice, kind of nutty flavor, although I didn’t use nuts. And the last minute idea to add the roasted squash ended up being a great idea. Not too long ago, I never would have thought that you could bake with seeds and ground nuts and then make things like pizza. If you haven’t done this and are on a limited diet, try this recipe. You might feel like you’re eating pizza again!

Soak and dehydrate the seeds first:

An important aspect of all recipes using ground nuts and seeds is that they must be properly soaked and dehydrated, and then ground. After you have dried the seeds and nuts, you can use a food processor to grind them into a fine flour. My old food processor couldn’t do this very well, so I ended up using a coffee grinder that works fine but can only hold a limited amount at a time. However, I got a new food processor and hopefully it grinds the nuts and seeds fine enough to make flour.

As far as I know, flax seeds do not need to be soaked and dehydrated in the same way that other seeds and nuts do. I recommend soaking, drying, and grinding seeds and nuts in large batches. I have a dehydrator that holds many shelves of nuts and seeds, so I can make several different types at once. If you don’t have a dehydrator, use as many nut or seed trays in your oven as possible. (@ no hotter than 150 F.) I then usually grind half of each type to make flour with them, as well as some whole seeds and nuts for other recipes.

Here is the prescription:

Gluten-free pizza dough (no grains, eggs, nuts, gluten, dairy, sugar or yeast)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup ground pumpkin seeds, soaked and dried
• 1 cup ground sunflower seeds, or a little more depending on consistency, soaked and dehydrated
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed meal
• 6 tablespoons of boiling water
• 2 teaspoons of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of honey
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder or 1-2 cloves freshly pressed garlic
• 2 teaspoons total of any of the following: dried parsley, marjoram, oregano, and/or basil

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grind the seeds before measuring 1 cup each. Combine the flax seed meal and hot water and let sit for 5 minutes. Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl. I like to knead the dough with my hands until everything is mixed. The dough will be very hard. Add more flour if the dough seems too wet, and a little more olive oil if the dough seems too dry.
2. Grease a cookie sheet and sprinkle with coarsely ground pumpkin seeds. Punch the dough into a ball and place it in the middle of the cookie sheet. Starting in the center and moving outward, flatten the dough with your hands. I like to make the edges slightly raised for the pizza dough.
3. Bake for 20 minutes (or longer if it looks too moist). Remove from oven, top with sauce and toppings, then return to the oven for as long as it takes for the toppings to heat through and the cheese to melt if you’re using cheese.

For my pizza, I used Bionaturae bottled strained tomatoes and bottled tomato paste, garlic, salt, honey and Italian herbs to make my sauce. Bionaturae uses glass bottles for both of these products, which I love because they are BPA-free and GAPS compliant. Compared to other store-bought tomato sauces that are sugar-free, it’s also much less expensive to make the sauce this way.

I also added some leftover ground beef or cooked turkey that I had made for another dish earlier in the week, as well as roasted butternut squash fries that I had made that afternoon for a snack.

I hope you enjoy this allergen free pizza crust! Tell me how you got over yours! I would love this crust with a delicious pesto sauce.

Enjoy!