It isn’t possible to know what a food actually tastes like until you try it yourself, or you ask for the opinion of someone who has already tried it. This means that trying gluten-free foods that are new to me is going to be an adventure. This is my review of Rustic Crust gluten-free pizza crust.
My husband’s favorite food is pizza. He sometimes makes them at home, and uses whole wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe’s. Obviously, this isn’t going to be an option for me to eat anymore, now that I figured out that I have a gluten allergy. He can still make those for himself, though, if he wanted to. I can eat something else that night instead.
On one of our trips to the grocery store, we noticed that there were some gluten-free pizza crusts available. These were sitting on the shelf of the gluten-free section at Vons. In other words, these pizza crusts are not the type that need to be refrigerated. We decided to give them a try, hoping that we had stumbled across a solution to our pizza problem.
The pizza crusts I’m talking about are from a company called Rustic Crust. The full name of this product is: “Rustic Crust Wheat-Free Gluten-Free Napoli Herb Old World Gluten-Free Pizza Crust”. The package comes with two, oval shaped, flat, crusts. One crust is a good size if you were planning on making an individual pizza.
I had to search through several packages before I could find one that did not have cracked crusts. Why were so many packages damaged? Did someone drop a box in the storeroom? I later learned that these pizza crusts are rather fragile, (even after you cook them), and crack rather easily.
The package also says that this product is “all natural” and “dairy free”. The ingredients include: filtered water, white rice flour, tapioca flour, soy oil, soy flour, raw cane sugar, yeast, chia seeds, salt, and spices. A separate part of the package says that the company hand measures fresh parsley, roasted basil, and roasted garlic into the dough.
We used these crusts to make little, individual serving sized, pizzas with. Unfortunately, at the last minute, it was discovered that the jar of pizza sauce we had in our refrigerator had gone bad. So, our “pizzas” consisted of cheese, mushrooms, and green peppers. My husband put some butter on the crust. Basically, he made a fancy garlic bread.
These pizza crusts smell good while baking. They do not rise at all, so you end up with a flat, cracker like, thin crust. When cut, these crusts had a tendency to crack in places that are not along the lines that they were being cut into.
The taste is a bit odd. There is a rice flavor that is somewhat strong. The edges of the crust held together rather well, but the inner parts seemed kind of mushy. After a few bites, it was clear that these crusts have a bit of a gritty texture to them. My husband and I both noticed a slight aftertaste that lingered for a while after we were finished eating.
Overall, the Rustic Crust gluten-free pizza crusts were okay. This is not my favorite gluten-free product, and my husband did not like them one bit. I might consider giving these a try again someday, after I have been eating gluten-free for a while. By then, perhaps I won’t be expecting the taste of “normal” pizza dough, with a wheat flavor, anymore.
Image by Queenofhaiku on Flickr