The Older Brother’s Oldest Son’s Fat Head Pizza – Director’s Cut!

Hey Fat Heads! – Long time.

As probably anyone who’s a fellow member of the LCHF/keto/low-carb/etc cult knows, The Oldest Son put up what turned out to be one of the most riotously popular recipes in the history of the interweb several years ago (original here).

As a matter of fact, I just Googled “Fat Head Pizza”  and got about 69,100,000 results. (!)

It’s logged almost 700 comments on the post and is still going strong.

Over the years, The Oldest Son has been doing occasional tweaks that improved the taste, texture, and prep. Of course, we always volunteered to try them out. The usual verdict was –  “hey, that’s even better – maybe you should update the recipe.”

As we’re coming up on the six year anniversary in a few weeks, he went ahead and put the updated version together. Update your bookmarks!

Cheers,

The Older Brother

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The post about a pizza post Informally known as “Fat Head Pizza” turns six!

I’m going to start the same way I did back in 2013 by giving credit to where I found this legendary crust: cookyscreations.blogspot.com. We wanted to help popularize it since there weren’t as many of the great sites we have today, and this crust was exactly what people were looking for. Something close enough to fool people into thinking they were eating “real” pizza. I simply tested different toppings and did a step-by-step with pictures.

Throughout the years, “Did you see that pizza crust recipe Fat Head found?” evolved into, “Have you heard of Fat Head Pizza?” Ironically, on multiple occasions, I’ve been asked the latter. I’ll tell them the backstory, but it is a great feeling to know how popular Tom’s site and the community of people researching good science has grown.

How I make The Crust today:
2 C Mozzarella, shredded
1 C Parmesan, shredded
3 oz Cream Cheese
2 Eggs
.25 C Flaxseed meal (ground, not whole)
1.25 C Blanched Almond Flour (or 1.5C almond meal and omit flaxseed)
1 Tbl Whole Fennel
Garlic Salt (the Duct Tape of food): about 1tsp, to taste, from the shaker
Coconut Flour: pinch or two to lightly coat the parchment

Toppings:
Sauce of choice: pizza, ranch, pesto
Sliced cheese: enough to cover the pizza, around 15 slices –typically 1.5 packages
Fully cooked meat and/or veggie of choice
Seasonings (basil, Italian, pepper, etc)

-Set oven to 415(F) and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Sprinkle a LIGHT dusting of coconut flour on the parchment.

-Microwave (or however you prefer) the parm, mozz and cream cheese 1 min, stir with fork, then another 30sec. Beat the eggs while waiting.

-Stir in eggs, almond, flax and fennel. Start with fork, then wet hands and “knead the dough”. Pick up and roll outside-to-in to mix well.

-Wet hands again and form a roll the length of the cookie sheet. Wet hands, spread it to the edges, repeat as needed.

-Poke holes, sprinkle with garlic salt, then put in oven and set a timer for around 14 minutes

-Once slightly browned, take out and turn the broiler on high. Add sauce and remaining toppings.

– Broil until the cheese starts to bubble and browns to your preference. And there you are:

Great for weekly meal prep. To reheat in the microwave, only do about 20 sec increments. We’ve been told the crust freezes well.  Enjoy!

Combos I make the most:
Munster w/ bacon and chicken. Ranch dressing en lieu of pizza sauce
Provolone w/ peperoni and olives. Pesto sauce (or pizza sauce topped w/ whole basil leaves)
Pepper jack w/ sausage, roasted bell pepper, onion and olives. Pizza sauce

One successful experiment was pan fried slices of Spam with curry seasoning, then cut into squares. Sort of my version of a Hawaiian pizza but without pineapple because…I just refuse.

Pepperoni = delightful. Toasted pepperoni = is this Heaven?

Before you make the crust, line another cookie sheet with parchment or foil and spread pepperoni. (I always line cookie sheets for easier cleanup.) Bake about five minutes—just until they’re crisp. A minute more and they’re burnt, so set a timer and keep watch. Can also toast them under the broiler while you’re adding the toppings to the crust. A fun challenge is to not eat any while the crust is cooking. I’ve won that challenge zero times.

Updates from 2013:

I used to check every few minutes to poke holes in the large bubbles, but one time, while watching an intense PGA match, I forgot to set a timer. Fortunately, a pizza commercial came on which prompted me to jump out of the couch and frantically open the oven to find a perfectly browned and flattened crust. This scientific method led me to discover that 14min at 415(F) is perfect with my oven and less work.

Coconut flour: Great pizzas made with traditional ingredients sit on top of some flour. This adds flavor. A LIGHT dusting of coconut is the best substitute. Too much and it dries the crust out, so just grab a pinch or two and sprinkle by hand.

Flax seed: I need blanched almond flour (compared to almond meal) for most other recipes, so that’s all I buy now. Flax adds back some of that grain taste and texture, if you prefer.

Along that line, I like the taste and firmness of the parm/mozz combo now instead of just mozzarella for the crust.

Fennel is another way to give it that traditional aroma. Your kitchen will smell like pizza parlor.

Sliced vs shredded cheese for the top: just another personal preference. As a Midwesterner, I love cheese. Cheese loves me. But thin slices help me regulate how much I’m adding and keeps it evenly dispersed so I can taste more of the sauce and toppings instead of just a brick-o-cheese. Plus, there are a ton of options.

Thanks for reading!