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

This pizza dough made from teff flour came out soft, airy, and with an interestingly unique flavor. It had a texture which more closely resembled a much firmer sponge cake – think of eating a savory brownie. Nothing close to a typical pizza dough but definitely flavorful and worth trying.

I couldn’t find any pre-ground teff flour by the health shop so I grabbed a bag of whole grains and decided to grind them myself at home. I’m pretty confident with my coffee grinder since I tried it out with millet grains.

These teff grains are already quite small to begin with so turning them into a fine powder shouldn’t take too much time.

The flour turned out quite loose and gritty to the touch hence the decision to add some flax seed meal for body. I’ve added some yeast too, not to get my dough to rise but for that freshly-baked bread flavor.

Leave these mixtures for about 10 minutes until the yeast is bubbly and the flax meal is gelatinous.

Stir both mixtures into the the teff flour and work it into a dough.

The dough came together too loose for my liking so I decided to add some tapioca flour in gradually. This should dry up the dough a bit and give it more structure as it bakes.

Go easy on the tapioca however, as it can make your crust too hard ifyou use too much.

Turn the dough onto a pizza pan and bake it for about 8 minutes at 425F.

Take the parbaked crust out of the oven and put your choice of toppings on.

I fancied a puttanesca-inspired pizza this time – tomatoes, olives, chili flakes, anchovies, red onions, olive oil, and cheese. Simple but very flavorful.

The dough resulted in a moist and slightly chewy crust.

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Teff Flour

Teff is known as the smallest grain and it mostly comes from Ethiopia. The grain’s size has interesting implications for teff flour, as the hull typically ends up intact when you make the flour, which is unusual. As a consequence, teff flour tends to be relatively high in protein and nutrients compared to other options.

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For that matter, teff flour is often referred to as a superfood, even though that term does get thrown around too frequently. Still, the nutrients in the grain do make the flour appealing.

In terms of flavor, teff tends to add a slight sweetness and nuttiness to baked food, making it particularly relevant for bread and sweet baking. For example, one fun recipe that uses the flour is Fig Chai Tea Bread. As you can see from the pizza recipe in the current post, the flour is also brown, which can make your finished product look that much more interesting.

Who Can Eat Teff Flour?

Teff flour is great nutritionally and it can be used to create some amazing products. However, it is generally considered a grain and this majorly restricts who can eat it. For example, teff cannot be consumed as part of the paleo diet nor as part of Whole30. Additionally, teff flour is fairly high in carbs, making it a no-go for a keto and even a general low carb diet.

At the same time, there are many people out there that actively avoid grains and pseudo grains, based on the idea that they are unhealthy. For people in this position, teff flour would also be a bad choice.

As a result, teff flour is mostly just relevant for people who are specifically avoiding gluten, along with people who have no strong dietary restrictions.

Cooking With Teff Flour

I was fairly happy with my teff flour pizza but the flour itself is still less popular than many other wheat flour alternatives. There are also fewer recipes available for it. In many ways, this pattern many simply be because the flour doesn’t fit in with so many types of diets.

Nevertheless, teff flour can work well for cooking and there are various recipes out there to try out. One of these is Teff Brownies and the recipe also manages to be free from eggs, dairy, rice and nuts.

Most of the time, teff flour is used in combination with at least one other type of flour. In my recipe, I relied on tapioca flour for this purpose and that is a common choice in other recipes as well. Tapioca helps to provide some additional structure and prevents the dough from becoming too moist.

Likewise, if you can eat gluten, there are some recipes that combine teff flour with all-purpose flour, such as this Blueberry Lemon Bread.

Making Teff Flour

One final advantage of teff flour is that you can easily make it yourself. In fact, I did just that when making this dough. All you really need to do is grind the teff grains and this can be easily achieved in a coffee grinder or something similar.

The process is also faster than normal, simply because the grains are already pretty fine.