Soaked Whole Grain Pizza Crust

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

Soaked Whole Grain Pizza Crust

This is an easy soaked grain pizza dough recipe that produces a suprising light and fluffy crust.

Ingredients:

450g khorasan, spelt or wheat grain
250g warm water
1 tbsp organic apple cider vinegar

70g khorasan, spelt or wheat grain

30g lukewarm water
3 tsp yeast
1 tsp organic honey

1/2 tsp Himalayan salt
1 tsp dulse flakes
1 tbsp organic extra virgin olive oil

Method:

Place blades in freezer for 10-15 minutes to reshape.

Mill grain in TMX in two batches (225g x 2) for 1 minute and 30 seconds on speed 9. Pour into a jug or bowl and sit on TMX lid. Weigh in 250g water and measure in cider vinegar. Mix well and leave covered to soak at cool room temperature for 24 hours.

After soaking period mill remaining grain for 1 minute and 30 seconds on speed 9. Set aside for later use (to be added to dough if too sticky or to dust surface for rolling the dough).

Add 30g lukewarm water, yeast and honey into TMX bowl and mix for 20 seconds on speed 2. Leave for 10 minutes to activate the yeast.

Add the soaked flour, salt, oil and dulse flakes into the TMX and mix for 7 seconds on speed 6. Knead for 2 minutes on interval setting. Check the dough after 20 seconds (by carefully feeling the dough through the hole) and add more water or flour (milled grain) if necessary.

Place the dough into an oiled bowl and set aside in a warm place to double in size (that took about 1 hour and 20 minutes for my batch today). This rising step isn't necessary for thin pizza crusts. Divide into portions and roll out to fit your pizza trays. Spread with paste or pizza sauce and leave dough to rise for a further 20-30 minutes if desired.

If you don't have a pizza stone consider pre-baking the pizza bases for 7 minutes at 200 degrees before adding the toppings and continuing to bake for a further 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Notes:

It is hard work mixing the liquid into the flour as it is a very dry soaking mix (it will still "soak" though).  You could easily mix it in the TMX if you prefer (I just don't like cleaning and drying it after as I am usually about to mill more grain).

It is hard to give an exact flour and liquid measure when working with 100% whole grains as each batch of grain is different and spelt, khorasan and wheat are all different also. Just feel the dough often during the kneading process and add a little water or milled flour as you need it to make a dough that is relatively easy to pluck out of the TMX (not too sticky, but not too dry).

Freeze any uncooked dough in zip lock bags.  Thaw in fridge before bringing to room temperature and continuing on with rolling out, adding toppings etc.

Photos:

You can find the photo of our pizza here on my blog. 

[zebraa]

That is absolutely brilliant. Thankyou.

What is Khorosan grain?

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

It was a super-yummy pizza. 

Khorasan (or Kamut - which is the trademark name) is an ancient grain that is low in gluten and has a similar nutritional value to spelt.  It looks quite different to spelt but works just as nicely in whole grain baking.  Actually as it is lighter in colour then spelt it produces whole grain baked goods that are a lovely golden colour which is nice.  It is a god send at the moment as spelt crops have failed nationwide and grain has been recalled for seed.  I bought my last bulk lot of khorasan from Santos online as my local supplier has run out and is now waiting for the next spelt harvest in November.

You can read more about it on my blog here. 

[cathy79]

Looking forward to trying this as always Chelsea.  We have pizza and movie nights either Friday or Saturday, so will be trying this very soon.

[Thermomixer]

Thanks Chelsea.  That really does look good - hard to belive that it is healthy too  .  Thanks also for the tips with extra dough etc - always handy for small families 

[cathy79]

We made this on Saturday night (started Friday night).  I didn't have time to let the dough rise, and cooked for about 5minutes before adding the toppings, then cooked until cooked (can't remember how long).

During the precooking time, the dough did rise a bit, and the end result was absolutely delicious.  The dough added a great depth of flavour to the pizzas.

This will definitely be our regular pizza dough recipe, as long as I'm organised enough!

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

It is rather yummy.

Last week I made a dessert pizza using this crust.  I adapted the recipe from one of Karen Martini's (although she probably wouldn't have recognised it). The first layer was a mix of ricotta, lemon zest, egg yolk and ground almonds.  The second layer was thawed blueberries.  The third layer was rapadura and flaked almonds.  The fourth layer was a drizzle of melted chocolate and cream.  It was heavenly! 

[Deeau]

"Place blades in freezer for 10-15 minutes to reshape."

I have not seen this before ...why do/should we do it

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

Over time the blades loose their shape and don't mill and chop as finely.  To return the blades (which are made out of a special type of steel) to their original shape you need to either place the blades in the freezer or chop ice.  With recipes that are made  using only milled whole grains (no bought flour) it is really important that the blades are super sharp before milling. 

[cathy79]

Made these again last night.  This time I was able to let the dough rise for a while (in the TMX bowl like I do with bread), rolled out and let rise again for a while.  Resulted in a thicker, "puffy" base.  Delicious once again.

Do you have any tips for rolling out the dough? I'm finding it tricky to get a nice shape and evenness.

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

Sorry Cathy I am having the same problems rolling it out.  Yummy pizzas, but rather strange shapes. 

[cathy79]

I was trying to roll it out on my Thermomat, but then can't get it off the mat.

My current method is to roll it out on the lined baking tray.  This works out reasonably well, but I'm sure there is a better way.

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

Is the dough too wet?  If you are using wheat then you may need to add extra flour at the end.  I use my mat for rolling too and a fair bit of flour. 

[cathy79]

It is quite wet which is probably why it's hard to roll.  But I'm cautious about adding more flour as the end result is perfect.  If I add more flour, it might end up too dry once it's cooked.

It's a balancing act.

[meganjane]

Over time the blades loose their shape and don't mill and chop as finely.  To return the blades (which are made out of a special type of steel) to their original shape you need to either place the blades in the freezer or chop ice.  With recipes that are made  using only milled whole grains (no bought flour) it is really important that the blades are super sharp before milling. 

Thanks for reminding me Chelsea. I should have read this before I went and milled 500g wheat for bread! The flour is really coarse and I don't think my loaf will be very flash...