I have made the famous ‘fat head’ pizza crust many times. If you don’t know it, Google it, it’s fab. But it can be a teensy bit dry and contains nuts. I’ve tried many alternative versions, swapping out the ground almonds for coconut flour etc. etc. but I couldn’t find one I loved. So I have been experimenting myself over time and I have landed upon the most delicious and nutritious low carb, keto and nut free pizza crust (which can incidentally be used for naan breads (pop some nigella seeds and a touch of cumin in the mix) or garlic bread… layer with crushed garlic and plenty of salted butter.
I promise that for those of you ( or your kids) who are cauliflower haters or even if you love the stuff, this isn’t the place you are going to taste it. For some reason, it is impossible to detect and yet there is an entire cauliflower in this one large crust!
Ingredients:
1 Whole Head of Cauliflower
1 Tablespoon Coconut Flour
200g Grated Mozzarella – (I use ready grated as it is drier and leads to a better crust.)
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tsp dried parsley (This is optional)
2 eggs
You will need a wide bottomed saucepan, an oven set to 200 C/190C (Fan), a baking tray lined with a sheet of non stick parchment, a clean, dry tea towel, a grater or food processor.
Method
- Take your cauliflower, give it a rinse and remove the outer green leaves (don’t throw them away, although we aren’t using them in this recipe, these are fabulous roasted – try it, utterly delicious!) Remove the hard core and then grate or if you have a food processor, process to resemble ‘rice’. (You can also buy this ready done but really, it’s easy peasy to create yourself. You should have around 550g of raw cauliflower rice.
- Place the cauliflower rice in a large saucepan and stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, cook over a medium to high heat. When piping hot and steaming, remove to a clean dry tea towel. Pick up the corners twist the top and over a bowl, SQUEEZE the living daylights out of it. Squeeze hard so that you get about 150ml of liquid out of it. Then squeeze it again. In this recipe, moisture is your enemy. Your arms should be hurting!
- Empty the ‘rice’ into a medium sized bowl, mix together the cooked and squeezed cauliflower rice, the grated mozzarella, the coconut flour and seasonings plus two whole eggs until well combined.
- Tip the dough onto your lined baking tray and squish and shape with your hands and fingers to create a pizza shape. It should be about 1cm thick all over.
- Bake in your oven on a middle shelf for 20minutes or until golden brown all over. Remove from the oven, apply your toppings (pureed tomatoes and then more mozzarella if you like…) then pop back in the oven for another 5 minutes until bubbly and mottled.
- Slice up and eat immediately. It can easily be frozen or reheated too. Just reheat until piping hot throughout.
