Is a Pizza Without a Gluten Network Still Pizza?
Iron Born rolls out a gluten free pizza, plus a legendary Mt. Lebanon pizza shop shuts down
Gluten Free Pizza at Iron Born
The first thing you notice about a good pizza is the network of dough that puffs up in the crust creating a thick handle for you to grasp. You peer into the cylinder and see a whole world developing. Strands of dough criss-cross through the crust as if squirted out by a hasty spider. This network of strands is the gluten network. It’s what makes your dough chewy, crusty, edible, fluffy and flavorful. To me, a strong gluten network is fundamental to great pizza.
Creating a quality gluten network depends so much on the starter, the flour and proportion of water. Those elements work together to create the dough. The yeast chows down on the starch found in the flour which creates a chemical reaction giving rise to the dough. The yeast has to eat something or your pizza ends up floppy, sad and flat. A pathetic disc of wet flour.
Without that gluten network a pizza can be lackluster. In the past, any gluten free pizza I’ve had has been a depressing affair. The flavors are bland, generously compared to cardboard. The crust is brittle with no character or charm. You can tell the pizza doesn’t even want to be a pizza. All those ingredients were tossed into a mold and forced into a shape resembling pizza to market to a certain type of gluten-free consumer.
My review of Cappelo’s Gluten Free Pizza is one of my top visited posts. I think because the community is craving good gluten free pizza. And pizza makers that care deeply about providing a quality product are taking notice.
When I went to Pizza Expo in 2018 Gluten Free Pizza was the talk of the show. It was the first year that there was a Gluten Free pizza category at the international pizza championships and many of the vendors showed off their gluten free pizza products. Graziano Bertucco, one of the greatest pizza makers in the world, gave a demonstration on what majestic pizza you can make using gluten free dough. Bertucco said, "You aren't what you eat, but what you digest."
As we become aware of what goes into our body you might want to cut out certain products that are key to pizza. For some people that’s gluten. Now, can you have your pizza without that precious gluten network?
The answer to that is a louder and louder yes. It’s never been easier to eat gluten free and now more places are experimenting with gluten free dough.
I saw on Instagram that Sara Boyer, who placed third in the most recent International Pizza Championship and is the general manager of Iron Born, was experimenting with a gluten free dough. The dough looked juicy, soft, squishy, bubbly. It looked like normal pizza dough.
Iron Born is dedicated to making high quality food, so I knew they had to be doing something special. Unlike some other places that get pre-made gluten free crusts, they’re making the dough in house. Sara said, “ We know gluten free crust is something our guest are looking for, but we didn’t want to settle for something we didn’t like ourselves. We tried a couple other variations of pre made gluten free crust and they were just not what we wanted.”
The gluten free dough is a mix of rice flour, corn starch, potato starch. Sara has been experimenting to get this dialed in so the crust could stand next to the standard Iron Born pizza dough. “I tried a flour mix Mike Mercurio told me about and made it like our normal Detroit crusts and it turned out better than expected. It has the ability to get the crispy crust we were missing with the others, the texture and moisture levels are great for a gluten free crust. They look very similar to our regular pizzas once finished as well.”
The gluten free pizzas are being rolled them out at the Strip District location for now and will soon be made available for the Millvale location.
Check out Iron Born in the Strip District for some thick gluten free pizza or hit up Mercurio’s for a gluten free Neapolitan pizza.
Bado’s Pizza Shuts Down in Mt. Lebanon
After forty years Bado’s Pizza is closing their shop in Mt. Lebanon. It’s tough when something that’s been around for a long time goes away. Change is hard. But it won’t be forgotten. It’ll live on as the community in that area gives people directions to locations within the vicinity of the building for years.
Many people sent me this news bit. I had Bado’s once. It was part of a dozen other pizzas brought to a pizza party. The idea was everyone would bring their neighborhood pizza to flex about their pizza (I brought Spak). Someone brought Bado’s and it was cold and okay. I’ve asked a few people what they thought of Bado’s and it wasn’t exactly setting the pizza world on fire.
Pittsburgh loves its institutions. This shop shutting down could be a sign the city is changing, but from what I’ve heard through the grapevine is that the kids didn’t want to continue the business. It’s a tough business and should the children be tied to their parent’s dreams of running a sweaty, hot, pizza shop and bar? Seems like a lot to put on kin.
Rumors are swirling that Graziano’s Pizzeria on Penn Ave is going through the same exercise. Graziano Sr wants to retire, but Graziano Jr wants to be free from the world of pizza. The shop has barely been open the past few weeks. The coolers are empty and the big stacks of pizza boxes in their window have dwindled down like the health bar of a final boss in a video game.
Pittsburgh is old and the pizza shops we weave into our lives are often older than we are. I suspect we’ll see a lot more institutions of this kind deciding to close up shop instead of struggling to compete with rising food costs and the general expenses of running a restaurant.
One forty year old pizza shop closes and one of the newer shops starts serving gluten free pizza. If that's not a sign of the times and the changing Pittsburgh demographic I don’t know what is!
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Pizza ya later!
-Dan Tallarico, Pizza Journalist