High Protein Seitanic Pizza Dough

Pizza has always been my most favorite food in the world. Since I also have protein goals, I wanted to create the perfect high protein pizza crust that people would say was a great pizza crust even if they didn’t know it was high protein! I have definitely accomplished that with this one! Because vital wheat gluten is so protein dense, you only need to replace a portion of your normal flours with it, and the pizza dough will still be high protein – it’s literally just math (which if I’m being honest, is the starting point for most of my high protein recipes)! This high protein pizza dough has that classic chewy, crunchy texture and the flavor is on point!

If you’re looking for a protein-packed mozzarella option to top this with, be sure to check out my Stretchy Soy Mozzarella recipe! It’s made with silken tofu, so it’s also great for those with nut allergies since a lot of vegan cheeses have a cashew base.

Ingredients

• All-Purpose Flour, 00 Flour – I tried a few iterations of this recipe and this was the ratio of each I ended up thinking worked best. 00 Flour is used for pizza dough specifically because it has a very fine grind which creates a softer, easier to stretch dough, which usually has a more airy crust with crispy edges. For the best results, I recommend using both of these flours.
• Vital Wheat Gluten – this is the main protein source for this recipe. Vital wheat gluten is actually 80% protein on a calorie basis, so we really don’t have to add a ton to increase the overall protein percentage of the recipe. If you haven’t worked with vital wheat gluten before, it’s typically used in making seitan, a meat substitute, but I loooovvvee baking with it to make desserts and bread-type things. Trust me, after you try this high protein pizza dough, you’ll be a believer! 🙂
• Salt – helps with flavor and the dough structure. Salt makes the dough a little more elastic (which is really important with this high gluten content dough), and less prone to tearing. It also helps regulate yeast production and control fermentation.
• Sugar – helps brown the crust better, and is also yeast food, which allows the dough to rise faster!
• Instant Yeast – our most important ingredient! Yeast are actually so freaking cool. I worked at an Ethanol Plant for a few years and they are seriously interesting. They eat sugar, they poop alcohol and they exhale CO2 (carbon dioxide), so they are useful for so many processes, like pizza dough making because they help it rise!
• Warm Water – for good yeast activity, it is important to use warm water (115 F, 46 C), but not too hot or you’ll kill the yeast. You should be able to use the hottest water that comes from your sink unless you have your water heater cranked up super high. I usually check mine with a thermometer just to verify.
• Olive Oil – we’re only using this to coat the bowl and the dough; it doesn’t go in the dough recipe.

Instructions

• In a large bowl, mix together the All Purpose Flour, 00 Flour, Vital Wheat Gluten and salt. You want this to be a homogeneous mixture, so that the gluten content is even throughout. I use a whisk for this step.
  • It’s very important to weigh out your flours, especially vital wheat gluten as it can be very dense. You might end up adding too much/too little flour/vital wheat gluten if you don’t weigh them, which can result in your dough being too dry or too wet.

• In a small bowl, add sugar and a packet of instant yeast.
• Add 115 F (46 C) water to the bowl, and stir a couple of times. You should be able to use the hottest water that comes out of your sink, but I like to check the temperature with a thermometer because I like happy yeast.
• Cover the small bowl with a towel, and let sit for 3 minutes.
• Your yeast-y water should look something like this. When you get that bubbling activity on top of that water, that means the yeast are good and active.

• Add the yeast water to your flour mixture, and stir together until you have a dough.
• Your dough should look something like this.
  • If it looks dryer than this (i.e. you can’t get all of the flour to incorporate), add in a small amount of water until it looks like this.
  • If it looks wetter than this (does not form a ball, the dough is sloppy and goopy), add a small amount of flour until it looks like this.

• Cover the bowl and allow to rest for 2 hours in a warm-ish part of your house. I like to cover mine with either cling wrap or press n’ seal first to keep the moisture in and then a couple of kitchen towels on top.

• At the one hour mark, I like to check in on it and make sure it’s getting bigger.
• At the 2 hour mark, your dough should look something like this.

• Pull the dough from one side and stretch it. Fold it onto itself, like your folding it in half. Pick up another corner and do the same thing. You will stretch and fold the dough 4 – 6 times (6 times if you can).
• It should look like this when you’re done with the stretch and folds.

• Re-cover the bowl and allow the dough to rest for another 3 hours. You can actually finish the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with 3 hours, so that’s my recommendation while you wait.
• Pre-heat the oven to 500 F (260 C).
• At the 3 hour mark, the dough should look something like this.

• At this point, I like to pre-heat the pan I’m going to use. The dough is on the sticky side, so I find that spraying some oil on my pan and also giving it a quick pre-heat, helps keep the crust from sticking to it.
• Once you’ve put the dough on the pan or whatever you’re cooking on, bake for 12 – 15 minutes. I usually target around 13 minutes for my oven.
• Final product should look something like this glorious bastard!

Silly Little Haiku

Dough ray me fa so

Perfect for a pizza ho

This is pizza dough