Tesco FreeFrom Cheese and tomato frozen gluten free pizza

I spotted these pizzas in the freezer today while I was picking up Tesco FreeFrom fish fingers. I find making my own pizzas so quick and easy that they take hardly any more time than opening a tin of soup, but was curious to find out what these would be like.

You need to let the pizza thaw for ten minutes before cooking in a hot oven, and then bake for about twelve minutes.  They are done when the cheese melts and begins to go brown.  I added some extra toppings to the pizza before cooking - they don't come with pineapple, pepperoni and olives.

The pizza had plenty of mozzarella cheese on so you get that traditional stringy cheese look when you cut the pizza.  I took lactase pills with my lunch as I would not normally eat anything with much dairy in.

The base held together, wasn't claggy or dry, and would be easy to eat as finger food as well as with knife and fork.  I found it a bit flabby straight out of the oven so put it on a hot griddle for a couple of minutes to crisp it, which gave it a texture I preferred.

The tomato topping is a bit bland.  I presume it has been formulated to please kids, and has no herby taste to me.  I sprinkled mixed Italian herbs on top and Rod squirted barbecue sauce on his slice to give it more flavour.

This pizza was pretty good, and the base a lot better than those in the pantry section that I tried before.  If I was to use them again I would add more flavourings before cooking and start the pizza on my griddle pan and then put in the hot oven the way I do when baking my own pizza.  The dough has several plant gums in to hold it together but not xanthum. It is made from maize flour.

Overall I think this is a good pizza.  You could add any flavourings you like, and so it could suit almost anyone.  It cost £2.50 and could easily feed two or three people.  If three people shared it each would have 270 calories.

Mozzarella quickbread panini

I made an ultra-quick and easy bread with a bag of grated mozzarella, some flour and yogurt the other day.  I used some of this to make a toasted sandwich for my resident dairy-eater, who frequently orders panini when eating out.  The bread had been in the freezer, so a quick zap to defrost  before cutting.

I don't have a toaster and the grill in this new flat sets the smoke alarm off every time I use it, so this was made using the crepe pan/griddle we use every morning for pancakes, and the microwave to melt the cheese.

I cut the bread through the middle, toasted each side on the griddle, and spread the melted cheese and chorizo (20secs in the microwave) on the bread and toasted a little longer.

This makes a toasted sandwich that I'm told is better than some ordinary wheat panini bought in cafes.

Easy cheesy gluten free quick bread

If you can tolerate dairy this is a super-easy delicious foccacio-style bread made with self raising flour, grated mozzarella cheese and yogurt.  The middle is soft, the outside crisp, and my resident dairy eater kept going yum yum as he ate this with the spiced lentil and carrot soup we had for supper.

Ingredients
200g grated mozzarella cheese
300g gf self raising flour (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal, with 1tsp baking powder to 100g flour)
yogurt /water to mix

Mix the cheese and flour together and then add yogurt until you get a soft dough.  Pat into shape on a baking tray and bake for 20minutes in an 175C oven.

Eat hot or cold.  Freeze left overs if you don't expect to eat it within a couple of days.

Seedy raisin mozarella bread

Still finding out what the mozzarella bread will do.  Today's version has a variety of seeds and nuts and raisins in to give a warm sweet flavour.  The addition of an egg didn't change the texture much, but with the egg, nuts, lentils and cheese this is a high protein bread.  I made loaves using my Lazy Bread method (one rise in the tin and turn the oven on without taking the loaves out) and some rolls shaped with a bit of extra flour and left to rise again.

This bread is delicious.  It slices easily, holds its shape, has an even texture, and a flavour good with cheese or honey...if you want a sweet tea bread add more sugar and raisins, some spice...whatever you would have put in a wheat bread.  TT says it tastes like artisan bread but not as tough in the crust as Greek bread, but the size of the hole, the texture and the way it tears it behaves like artisan bread.  It  provides a good base for other flavours to shine.

Ingredients.

400g flour
250 mozzarella cheese, grated
mixed nuts and seeds - ground or chopped
20g buckwheat
10g brown linseed
10g sesame
10g poppy
20g pecan nuts
40g raisins
1 tsp yeast
2 tsp sugar
1 egg
water added to egg to make up to 500ml (this makes a very sloppy dough, use less water if just making rolls)

Chop or grind seeds and nuts to texture you want.

Mix dry ingredients together including mozzarella.  Mix egg and water.  Mix dry and wet ingredients.

For loaves scoop into greased baking tins - fill to two thirds of the tin.  Leave to rise in the oven with a dish of steaming water on the base.  When the dough reaches the top of the tins turn on oven to 180C and cook for 30minutes.  I have a fan oven, which heats up very fast.  I have no idea if this will work with the slow increase in temperature of a non-fan oven.  If you don't have a fan, just move the dough into the preheated oven very carefully or don't let it rise right to the top of the tin!

Lower temperature to 150C and cook for another ten - twenty minutes.  The timings are approximate as they depend on the size of the tin you are using.  As a rule of thumb I find the bread takes about as long as a wheat loaf at the higher temperature, then about half the time again at the lower temperature.  The mix takes a lot longer to dry out than a wheat loaf would. If in doubt, cook it a bit longer!  Leave it to cool in the tin for a while and handle gently when tipping out.

For rolls, leave until the dough starts rising.  Flour your hands and the baking tray, shape lightly using plenty of flour to avoid sticking.  Leave to rise again then bake in a hot oven. My rolls are a bit bigger than a normal hot-dog roll; I cooked them for 20 minutes at 180 and 10 minutes at 150C.

Eat fresh, or slice and store in the freezer until wanted.

Stuffed-crust pizza with mozzarella dough

I made a batch of the mozzarella dough but using a quicker technique for a pizza.  I set fingers of mozzarella on the rim of the pressed out disc and covered with more dough, squeezing to join.  I then covered this with tomato sauce, and other pizza toppings.

TT says this pizza is so good we don't need to go to pizza restaurants anymore - though I do need to source excellent topping ingredients now.


Ingredients for dough:
250g flour
125 g mozzarella (grated)
225 water (less water as not leaving dough so long)
1 tsp yeast (double yeast as wanted quicker result)
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp oregano

Mix dry ingredients including grated mozzarella together, stir in water.  Leave to sit, covered, in a warm place until it is clear dough is rising.

Press out onto non-stick sheet, sprinkled with flour or cornmeal.  Make rim if wanted by placing cheese strips along edge and covering with dough. Cover with whatever toppings wanted.

Bake 180C for 15 minutes and lower to 160C for a further ten minutes.

I'll have to see how this works with the lactose free cheese available in the supermarkets - it has little flavour so I haven't been tempted by it, preferring instead the superb artisan Cheddars from the West Country that are lactose free due to the traditional processes and long slow maturation.  If the (rather plastic) cheese can do the textural wonders that mozzarella does it would be very convenient - I ate (no milk products) bread and peanut butter for my lunch while he tucked into this pizza.

Crusty and soft - artisan style gluten-free bread

Wow!  A chance to write that set of words in a title!

I have been experimenting further with the mozzarella cheese bread.  I made bagels and rolls.  The bagels were less impressive than I hoped, a bit too damp textured, so maybe longer cooking would be all that it took. They also behaved quite differently when place in the boiling water - they sank first, which is something wheat bagels do but I haven't had that before with my gf bagels.  I didn't boil them long enough either, as they carried on rising in the oven enough to go 'blind', that is the holes mostly filled in.

However, the rolls are amazing.  I can't eat them (apart from a tiny test), being full of cheese, but TT is very complementary.  They look, feel and taste good.

Ingredients
500g flour (40%urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
500ml water
1 tsp yeast
250g mozzarella, grated

Mix water, flour, and yeast together, cover and leave to rise. Gently stir in grated mozzarella and shape into rolls.  Make them higher than you want them to end up as they will spread out a bit.  I found that even with a very damp dough I could produce a good shape with heavily floured hands.  Place on a floured tray and leave to rise.

risen dough and cheese - note air bubbles

Cook for 30 minutes at 170C, or longer for bigger loaves.  I set the oven at a lower temperature and cooked for longer to encourage the interior to dry well.

soft white bread - with mozzarella cheese

bread interior

When I was researching breads I came across South American breads made with tapioca flour and cheese.    I didn't try them as I didn't have the right kind of cheese, and I try to avoid milk based foods due to my lactose intolerance.  However, I have been experimenting with lactase for pre-treating milk, and have lactase tablets for eating if I have diary with a meal (particularly useful when eating out).

This bread recipe makes a very soft moist bread with a mild cheesy flavour - still ok for eating with jam (think cheesecake), as well as savory foods.  It has good coherence, is soft, flexible and moist. It works very well as a sandwich, and I suspect would be excellent for making grilled sandwiches (panini). TT likes this so much that I am going to try a bagel with added mozzarella for him soon.  He says it is like soft white bread but without the annoying vanishing into nothing attributes.

I used more yeast than I would usually use to make a quick bread for lunch.  If you want the nutritional and taste benefits of a slow fermentation use less yeast.

Ingredients (one loaf shaped a bit like ciabatta):

125g mozzarella (the firm type) - grated
125g flour (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
1/4tsp baking powder
70ml yogurt
60ml water


Mix dry ingredients together, stir in grated mozzarella, mix in yogurt and enough water to make a sticky dough.  Leave to rise, covered, in a warm place.  Tip out onto a greased baking tray and bake for 20minutes at 180C

dough on greased tin

cooked loaf

Ice cream - aiming towards lactose-free

coffee icecream

Lactose intolerance is a common adjunct of coeliac disease, though for some people the healing of their villi means this is short-lived problem.  For lots of people, though, lactose intolerance is a permanent  issue.

OK, so we could just skip milk products, but there is a problem with the work 'just'.  Milk is in lots of foodstuffs (even medicines are bulked out with lactose - when I asked about a product to help deal with gluten-intolerance it turned out it had lactose in it. Duh!). Also, milk makes yummy foodstuffs.  Having spent a lifetime of puritanical foods as I was instinctively avoiding gluten and lactose, and adeptly producing erroneous reasons why, I now want to eat icecream, cheese, etc and enjoy them.

I found that pre-treating milk with lactase drops is very effective.  I can handle the residual small amounts of lactose.  Having made gratins and sauces and yogurt I moved onto fromage blanc successfully.  There were all made with whole jersey milk.  I pre-treated a carton of whipping cream  and used it to make ice-cream.   I simply added a little sugar and some strong espresso coffee and rum and put it in the ice-cream maker.

espresso icecream - texture

The icecream came out a little grainy (over mixed I think) and a little brittle (sugar syrup needed?). It tasted very good and I  will keep at the experiments.

However, I don't think the lactase had worked as well in the cream as in the milk.  I looked on the internet to see if there were any comments on cream and lactase.  All I found were other people asking the same question and no-one giving a competent answer.

I wrote to the people I bought the lactase from.  They simply repeated the milk-treatment instructions (why didn't they read the question!).  I have written to the company they buy the product from.  I await their answer.

Having accidental made an 'almost mozzarella' yesterday by making a sauce with the fromage blanc and over heating it I would like to have a go at making proper mozzarella.  The milk solids coagulated so I made a garlic and 'cheese' bread with one of ready-made pizza bases from the freezer.

almost mozzarella

I have found a supplier of all the kit and instructions and even courses.  I would like, first, to know if there is a interaction between fat levels and lactase effectiveness.


Aged cheeses have a lot less lactose than soft cheeses, so a little mature Parmesan is OK, and the cream cheese available in the stores is OK, but we do miss the entertainment a mozzarella gives to a pizza, and the summery fresh buffalo mozzarella with properly ripe tomatoes and basil.