Teff sourdough pizza

I experimented with my teff sourdough bread recipe to make a pizza crust, and it turned out great. I went for thinner crust, but left a little extra around the edge so that it was still chewy. It held together easily and got crispy, all while keeping a subtle teff flavor. My only adjustment to the bread recipe is that I added more oil and made it drier/more-stiff (ie: added more flour).

I made this pizza to have with friends, though information I understand now clarifies that meals with friends (indeed friends visiting each other's homes) is not enough social distance, so this was the last in-person social time I suspect I will have in awhile. We ate pizza and also did a reading of Jen Silverman's The Moors, and though we read this in the same room, play readings would make an excellent activity to conduct via zoom or your video-chat option of choice; you just need to scan/disseminate scripts ahead of time!

Teff sourdough pizza crust: makes 1 thin 10" pizza crust
1 cup gluten-free sourdough starter
2 Tbsp warm water
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp maple syrup, honey, or coconut sugar
1 Tbsp ground chia seeds
1 Tbsp whole psyllium husks
1/2 - 1 cup teff flour (or any combination of whole grain gluten-free flours)
1 Tbsp arrowroot powder (or tapioca flour)

1) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Place starter in large mixing bowl. Whisk in the liquids and salt (warm water, salt, olive oil, maple syrup/honey).
2) Next, whisk in the ground chia and psyllium husks.
3) Add the flours (Avoid letting the mixture sit more than a minute or two, as the chia and psyllium start bulking the dough up quickly!)
4) Mix them all together with a strong large spoon until dough is thick and dough like/ Unlike the bread recipe, it will not drip off your spoon. 
5) Spread the dough into a circle on a parchment covered cookie sheet. I wet my hands with water and smoothed the "dough" out, pressing gently. The chia seeds make the dough almost gelatinous, it's a different texture, and sticks together pretty well even when pressing quite thin.
6) Pre-bake for about 20-25 minutes. The crust will get nice and firm, and is also pretty flexible. I baked the crusts at different times and for different times - it is quite flexible.
7) Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack if you have one. I had time and so made these crusts early, but you could also just pile on your toppings and then bake right away. I suspect these would be easy to freeze at this stage, but I have not tried that yet.

The best pizza of the evening, I thought, was a pesto, sausage, green pepper, spinach, roasted tomato, olive pizza. Really, it got all of the toppings! When you do your final pizza bake, have high heat (450 degrees) and bake just until your toppings are melty and cooked, 5-10 minutes.

Gluten Free Teff Sourdough

Once in awhile I buy the Thuro teff sourdough loaf from the co-op for toast and fancy breakfast eating. It's dark and tastes grainy from the teff, and doesn't have weird stuff in it. It is not cheap ($10 I think?) but it is tasty. I recently got a bit nostalgic about baking bread, and also got curious about making my own sourdough after looking at Thuro's ingredient list. Internet research revealed that teff is one of the easiest flours to ferment, so I had a go at it the past few weeks.

It turned out delicious! As good as Thuro's, even better because I get to eat it fresh. Yum. It's nice and chewy - definitely not light and airy - more of a dense, rye seeming bread. I really like it.

I followed these instructions for making my starter, and found the photos helpful to reassure me that I was on the right track. All you do is put teff and water in a clean mason jar and set it in a warm location. Then you "feed" it more teff and water each day, or every other day. My bread recipe called for 4 cups of starter, so I just added about 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 c water every day or two until I got to the right amount. It had a nice fermenty smell, and often the liquid layer that separated from the rest was a dark brown.

My bread recipe was from an internet search, with ingredients that most resemble the Thuro loaf. The link is useful for first time making of this bread to see photos of consistency and to get a feel for the right texture (to know when to add more flour or water). This is because starter is really inconsistent, so you are going more for a texture than exact amounts of flour.

The recipe includes psyllium husks (to bind the flours), which you can buy in bulk at the co-op, and ground chia seeds (also a binding agent). I had not previously ground chia seeds - they get fluffy! I did it in a coffee grinder, which worked great. This also makes a bigger loaf that you can buy, and it really is quite gleeful to make myself. I can't wait to make more, and maybe I'll try a little buckwheat flour in the bread with the teff.

Starter:
50 grams teff flour
100 grams water
*I have a scale so weighed these out; it is about 1/2 cup of each.

1) Mix the two ingredients together in a grease free bowl.
2) Transfer the mixture into a grease free glass jar and then cover with a lid. The lid doesn’t have to be airtight.
3) Let the jar sit in a room with temperature between 63-77℉ or 17-25℃ for 18-24 hours.

Teff sourdough loaf: makes 1 9x5 standard loaf
4 cups gluten-free sourdough starter, active and bubbly (mine was only subtly bubbly)
1/2 cup warm water, + more as needed to achieve desired consistency
2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp maple syrup or agave
4 Tbsp ground chia seeds
4 Tbsp whole psyllium husks
1 to 1-3/4 cups teff flour (or any combination of whole grain gluten-free flours)
1/4 cup tapioca flour or arrowroot powder

Prep:
1) Place starter in large mixing bowl. Whisk in the liquids and salt (warm water, salt, olive oil, maple syrup).
2) Next, whisk in the ground chia and psyllium husks.
3) Add the flours (Avoid letting the mixture sit more than a minute or two, as the chia and psyllium start bulking the dough up quickly!)
4) Mix them all together with a strong large spoon until dough is thick and still drips off the spoon. This is where you need to get the right texture and it is worth checking the photo in the link.
5) Oil a 9×5 bread pan and pour your dough into it. Level the bread out. Cover with parchment paper or a cookie sheet.
6) Place in a warm place so that it can rise for 3-6 hours. For me, this is near the stove. If the environment is warm, it should rise in about 3 hours. If it’s pretty cool, it could take up to 8 hours to rise. My dough only rises a little bit, which is what the recipe author experiences too. (And must be common, because even the Thuro loafs are squat.)

Baking:
7) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Bake the bread until it reaches an internal temperature of 205 degrees. *This is important, and is worth having a thermometer for. Apparently baking bread is quite variable, but internal temp is the way to go for consistent done-ness. It took about 2 hours for my loaf to get to 205, and the edges pulled away from the sides and got more dark.
8) Let it cool on your counter for 10-20 minutes. Then remove it from the pan by running a large spatula around the perimeter of the pan to loosen it. Slide the spatula under the bottom of the bread to gently loosen it from the pan. Mine came out easily when I tipped it. Allow it to continue cooling on a clean cutting board or a wire rack.
*The recipe author suggests slicing it when fresh for better storage, which is what I did. I froze most of the loaf/slices, but left out a few pieces to eat fresh/store in the fridge.

With soft boiled eggs

With nutritional yeast and butter! (PB&J behind)