Yeast-Free Challenge

Yeast-free pizza has been my latest challenge. I had made soy-free pizza and even found a couple of places that made soy-free pizza. However, since having to be gluten-free, dairy-free, and yeast-free, pizza just had too many of the ingredients I need to avoid.

After about a month, I really started craving pizza. I started researching receipes. There are plenty of gluten-free pizza crust reciepes, but they all called for yeast. The other night, I decided to search again and found a few reciepes that called for mixing in olive oil, water, and baking powder to replace the yeast. I needed to add much more water and oil than the receipe called for to get the gluten-free flour to start forming into dough. The consistency of the dough felt more promising than the mix I had tried once (that called for adding seltzer water in place of yeast). The pizza looked good and smelled good but when we tried to cut slices, it was almost impossible to cut through. It was tough and chewy, which doesn't seem possible except that the crust baked into two separate layers. The crust was still better than the mix, but I don't think I'll make it again.

I've been using corn tortillas as a replacement for bread. I did not eat much bread when I was growing up; probably because it bothered my stomach. When I figured out my soy-allery and had trouble finding bread at the store, I went to visit my Grandma to learn how to make hamburger buns. My Mom also bought bread makers and tried several receipes. I used her receipe, but rarely used the bread maker. I found it easier to mix up a four-batch version and bake in bread pans. I started to love bread. I was amazed at the difference.

The bread receipe calls for yeast of course. I have not tried making yeast-free bread yet. I found one flat bread receipe, but it requires 4 hours of cooling in the oven after baking. Perhaps this weekend I'll find some time to test the bread receipe. Maybe if the flat bread is good, I can use it to make pizza. Keep in mind, its a cheese-less pizza. I tried rice cheese and just didn't like it enough to eat it again. Extra pepperoni and more veggies work just fine.

The two things I have had the hardest time finding replacements for are yeast and cheese. There are lots of gluten-free products, although many of them will contain one of the other allergens such as soy or tree nuts (such as Bob's Red Mill gluten-free flour). King Arthur gluten-free flour is free of the other allergens. Rice milk has been an easy replacement for milk. Cocunut oil and palm oil shortening have worked for butter for making cakes or desserts. Many replacements for butter and other dairy items are soy-based, which I can't have. There seems to be a lack of items that are safe for multiple allergies.

One last comment on yeast. I had acne the past two years that wasn't responding to anything, even prescription medicine. It improved some when I went on the elimination diet, and seemd to improve the weekends we were camping. I would break out when I returned to work. What was the difference? I wasn't wearing make-up on the camping weekends but I would wear it to work. I got the results of the interolerance testing about that time and read the ingredients of my makeup. The makeup foundation I was using contained yeast. Since I've stopped using the makeup, I have had few new breakouts, but it will take quite a while for the scars to disappear.

I'm feeling optimistic that I'm figuring out all the sources of the problems, but I do get frustrated with how many things I have to avoid.