Cauliflower Pizza Crust

So yes, it is blasphemous to remove the crust from pizza and replace it with cauliflower. And yes, I was incredibly skeptical of this when suggested to me by my loving wife to make. Cauliflower? Really? No way that can be a good substitute for real crust.

And to answer the question in your mind, "if he is posting about it, it must have worked!" Yes it worked, but no, it isn't close to the real thing, yet surprisingly wasn't half bad. In fact, it was actually quite good, it its own way. And the whole freaking 12 inch pizza, toppings included, was 580 calories and gluten-free!

The process itself was interesting and I definitely would make a few changes to the recipe. This one will be a work-in-progress as I refine a better technique and optimum cheese, egg, and cauliflower ratio. You will see my comments below about it in italics.


Ingredients

Crust
1 head of cauliflower (about a pound and a half), grated or chopped finely in food processor
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp garlic paste
1/4 cup Italian light five-cheese mix, shredded
2 1 eggs, lightly beaten (first time around I tried 2 eggs but felt it was a little much in the mixture)
cornmeal, to keep it from sticking!

Pizza Toppings
1/2 cup marinara pizza sauce
1/4 cup Italian light five-cheese mix, shredded
1/2 bell pepper
1/2 white onion
4 cloves garlic
1 1/2 Italian chicken sausage


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Remove as much of the stem as possible from the cauliflower, leaving only the florets. You can either use a cheese grater or a food processor to shred the cauliflower. Microwave for 5 minutes at normal power. Let cool for a few minutes and then try to press as much of the moisture out of the cauliflower. The more moisture, the soggier the crust, or that's what the dozen recipes sites said online when I was figuring out what I was going to do.
3. Mix the cauliflower in a large bowl with the herbs and cheese. Now the first time I made this, I used 2 eggs, which I felt was a bit much, next time I will add 1 at a time, looking for a less mushy consistency.
4. Sprinkle some cornmeal on the pan or pizza stone (I still need to get one of these!) to keep the crust from sticking to the substrate. Dump the crust mixture out and spread into a circular shape. If you spread to roughly a 12-inch diameter, the crust will be ~1/4 inch thick. This results in a pretty thin crust and leaves a larger chance to overcook it if some areas are too thin.
5. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. It will be ready when the crust has turned a nice golden brown. This definitely will need some adjustment, 20 minutes was not enough as I originally tried, but forgot to set my timer for another 5 minutes. I think I pulled it out at roughly 30 minutes total and it was a bit burned on the bottom. For now 25 minutes is a good estimate, but keep an eye on your crust until I get these details worked out.
6. Remove from oven and crank up the temperature to 450 degrees. Top with whatever you want and cook for roughly 5-8 minutes. I used some good pizza sauce, handful of light cheese, onion, garlic (lots!), bell pepper and Italian chicken sausage. It tasted great and again, with the light cheese and no  bread crust, this baby was less than 600 calories for the whole thing and easily fed two people.