Udi's Gluten Free Pizza Crust

Udi's Gluten Free Pizza Crust
Photograph Copyright 2012 by Kelsey Wyatt

Finding the perfect slice of pizza is a noble pursuit and that venture is made infinitely more difficult when someone must avoid gluten as it's much harder to see a beautiful pizza crust rise as it should without that perfect combination of wheat flour and other ingredients. 

One tactic that those with allergies might take is that of the homemade pizza and after looking around, the average gluten-intolerant individual is likely to find that quite a few different companies offer plain pizza crusts and each company has quite a different approach to their recipe.

Udi's Gluten Free Pizza Crust
Photograph Copyright 2012 by Kelsey Wyatt

The universal factor uniting most gluten-free pizza crusts is that they generally do not rise or change size inside the oven while being cooked and if they're a dense product when they're uncooked, they'll remain so even after they've been given toppings and a short ride in the oven.

For Udi's Gluten Free Pizza Crusts, the crusts themselves are rather thin to start so people who like thin crust pizza would likely want to try these crusts as they do seem to be the thinnest on the market at the present time. There are a lot of bakery type entries from Udi's and as one of the major players in the gluten free bread racket, Udi's does tend to have a good recipe for their items.

Regarding the calories and fat within the crust, as is to be expected the nutrition facts on the back of the package of their pizza crusts try to put one over on you by suggesting that a "serving" is only 160 calories and four grams of fat. This really isn't bad, but remember that nobody is going to eat just one serving (which happens to be a quarter of the pie). Just about everyone is going to be able to down an entire pie. So plan your calories accordingly when you make one of these pizzas since you'll be getting calories from toppings as well.

Udi's Gluten Free Pizza Crust
Photograph Copyright 2012 by Kelsey Wyatt

The crusts used for this review came out of the freezer section at the local Sprouts and this seems to be the way with a few of the Udi's products so if you're unable to find these crusts in the bread aisle of your local grocery store, it's probably because they're in the freezer.

The size of the crusts is fairly respectable and filling one crust up with toppings is an appropriately sized meal for a single person. It's doubtful many people who were staring a pizza in the face would be able to enter into any sort of conservation and eat just half of one of these. A fresh, hot pizza from the oven just begs to be scarfed down in its entirety.

For the purposes of this review, I just slapped some sauce and cheese onto the crust before popping it in the oven for about twenty minutes or so, but the rigidity of the crust is sufficient to hold any sort of toppings you might want to throw on.

Udi's Gluten Free Pizza Crust
Photograph Copyright 2012 by Kelsey Wyatt

Taste-wise, which is really the most important part of any pizza, Udi's has done well with their crust and one of the better elements of these crusts is the consistency of the finished pizza once it's been cooked. 

A higher temperature is recommended (on the middle rack because you don't want it to burn before the cheese melts!) to ensure that the crust is cooked in its entirety.

(I likely should have left my pizza in the oven a smidgen longer as the cheese could have been a bit more well-done for my tastes, but I was worried about burning the crust itself)

Udi's Gluten Free Pizza Crust Report Card

The Good Stuff:

Overall, this crust is an easy way to make pizza as someone who can't eat wheat or needs to stay away from gluten and the taste, while not likely to knock your socks off, will definitely satisfy your need for pizza.

Udi's Gluten Free Pizza Crust
Photograph Copyright 2012 by Kelsey Wyatt

Another interesting factor for these crusts is that they're not ferociously expensive. Here in California they cost between three and four dollars so they might be even less expensive in other locales (and that's the price for a double sack of crusts since they come in pairs).

Overall, these crusts are definitely worth a try as their recipe is solid and the texture of the crust is great. And the good price can't hurt either, right?

To Be Improved Upon:

It might be nice to see a larger pizza in the works as most gluten-free pizza options are always so small. It's kind of a pain to have to cook two separate pizzas if you're cooking for two. The strength of the crust seems as though it would hold up fine with a larger circumference.