Millet Flour Pizza Dough Recipe | Food For Net (2024)

I’ve been wanting to try out millet flour for my pizza dough for quite some time now (I’ve experimented with many other flours too, including rice flour and lupin flour). The problem is, I can’t find one in the nearby specialty health shop. Not willing to wait for the next batch of deliveries to come, I went with whole millet grains thinking that I can grind them easily myself.

Processing these millet grains in my coffee grinder was a lot easier than I was expecting, taking just under a minute.

Run the processed flour through a fine sieve to get those last bits of grain out of the flour. They can make your pizza crust really gritty.

The flour still came out too grainy to hold up into a smooth dough.

My mindwas clearly set on making upsomething similar to a pancake batter, cooking it initially in a non-stick pan, then finishing it off to crisp in the oven.

I added an egg for binding, a good pinch of baking powder to lighten it up a bit, and some soy milk to get it to the consistency I like. You may go for any milk if you wish, or simply water. I went for soy milk to keep this batter vegetarian-friendly.

Still too loose – those little millet grains were still so distinct. I knew some dense flour had to go in to give structure to my batter. I instantly thought tapioca flour would be my best bet given its sticky nature.

The batter cooked really nicely in a non-stick pan, dense enough to crisp up in the oven.

I wanted to see how this millet flour crust would hold up to heavy toppings. Chicken slices, mushrooms, mozzarella. . . I thinkthat’s heavy enough to test this dough’s strength.

After another 15 minutes in the oven, the dough came out holding really well. Crisp but not crumbly at all. It really had a unique flavor too, similar to chickpeas, which wasperfectly enhanced by the addition of garlic powder in the batter.

I’ve been using the Bakerstone Box to grill my pizzas outside with awesome results. It works well, even with gluten free pizza doughs that need to be baked on a pan!

Millet Flour

As the recipe shows, I took advantage of both millet and tapioca flour to create the desired consistency for this pizza dough. A key reason was simply that I made the millet flour myself, as the end result might be a little different if you bought the flour from the store. Nevertheless, the dough itself came out well and is perfect for making homemade pizza.

Of the two flour types, tapioca is probably more common and is often considered one of the best performing gluten-free flours. In fact, tapioca flour is used in a range of different types of dishes, particularly as a thickening agent.

But, millet flour also has some appealing aspects.

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Millet itself is a term that refers to a group of grasses that produce small seeds, with the most common variety being pearl millet. Although it is common in many types of the world, millet isn’t a traditional food source in Northern America. Still, as interest in gluten-free eating grows, there has been an increased focus on the potential of millet for cooking.

By far, the biggest advantage of millet is that it is structurally similar to wheat. As a result, baking with millet can often give similar outcomes but without the gluten. This is a great advantage, especially as many people hate the way that gluten-free baking turns out.

Using Millet Flour

Millet flour tends to have a sweet flavor, similar to what you find with sorghum. However, unlike sorghum, there is no bitter aftertaste. In most cases, the flour is mixed with other types of gluten-free flour, as I did with this recipe. The other types of flour are important, as they help with binding.

For example, adding a little millet flour to a traditional bread recipe can result in bread that is lighter overall but also has a crunchy crust. Likewise, millet flour is commonly used in other types of recipes, like millet flat bread.

While the flour is versatile, it can be somewhat tricky to use. As my own experience shows, millet grains tend to be fairly distinct, which makes them hard to cook with on their own. This is why most recipes call for at least one other type of flour. For example, I used millet as one component of my Cornmeal Pizza Dough as well.

Millet and Diets

As millet is gluten-free, it is perfect for people on a gluten-free diet. But, even though it is technically a seed, millet isn’t compatible with some other diet types. In particular, common recommendations for ketosis and for paleo diets suggest that you should avoid millet, even though it technically complies with paleo.

On a side note, excessive consumption of millet can potentially harm your thyroid. As a result, it’s best to use this as one of the grains in your diet, rather than relying on millet flour every time you bake.