Cauliflower Pizza Crust: The Results

 The other night I pre-prepped cauliflower for a pizza crust. Something I've been thinking of I worked loosely around a recipe I found online, and worked a few other concepts and recipes in. Essentially, I had 2 full heads of cauliflower, I steamed it, put it through the kitchen aid food processor and made a nice riced cauliflower. 

I used paper towel to squeeze the liquid out, wishing I had some cheesecloth but I gave Jess mine when they moved out. 

I let the cauliflower sit last night, didn't make it for dinner because I knew it would take some time. Glad I didn't attempt to undertake this at 8pm last night!

Tonight was the night, though. I got the cauliflower out, and got to work. I estimated I had about 5 cups of riced cauliflower, so I'd need to wing it with the rest of the ingredients. I used 3 eggs, a handful of shredded parmesan, some shakey cheese, salt, pepper, garlic powder. I don't like oregano so I skipped that.

 I smushed it all together, and it looked like a lumpy mess. The instructions said to not worry about it but to shape it out onto a cooking sheet. I'm glad they warned me that I wasn't going to like the consistency.

I opted to do a big rectangle instead of 3 small rounds, one for each of us. I thought it would be easier this way to make almost a "Sicilian" Style pizza. 

The instructions said to form the crust/s on a parchment, and bake at 400 degrees for 30-40 min. Then, flip the crust. The instructions said to "not worry" about the flip, and putting it on parchment, you can just flip it over onto the baking sheet.  

Lies.

It stuck to the baking sheet, so I couldn't flip it over again. Shiiiiiit. I had made a nice edge around the crust thinking I would fill the pizza in there, but with flipping it over, it started to break apart. Shit. Shit. Shit. 

So I baked it upside down, and said meh. Not worth fighting with it. But note to self, should I undertake this again, 2nd tray has parchment on it when we flip. So I can then reflip and have that edge.

Baking an additional 15 minutes, it looked good, crusty, nice. Okay, not a loss.

I took it out of the oven and put the toppings on. Ground mild sausage, sauteed onions and mushrooms, marinara sauce, and shredded mozzarella. Back into the oven for 20 minutes to brown the cheese. 

All told, it came out good. It was tasty, but kinda not what I expected. I thought maybe next time I'd add some almond flour to stiffen it up a little more. 

Also it was extremely time intensive, too much so. I don't think I'd do it again. Maybe I'd use frozen (thawed out) riced cauliflower for this instead. Or see if I could buy frozen versions. I like that I can control what is in the "dough" whereas the frozen I may not have control over. 

Doug and Geoff liked it, but now my house smells like cooked cauliflower. 

Not a failure overall. I guess that's the big glowing recommendation I can make.