Vegan Buffalo Cauliflower Pizza

Place the crust ingredients into a bread machine in the order listed in the owner’s manual. Set it for the dough cycle. If you don’t have a bread machine, you can use an electric mixer with a dough hook to knead it.

Once the dough cycle is complete, lightly spray a large bowl with non-stick spray, put the dough into it and coat the dough with spray as well, so that it doesn’t dry out. Cover with a towel and let dough rest for 10 minutes in a warm place. The dough is too elastic at this point to press into the pan. After 10 minutes, it should be more relaxed and you can form your crust by pressing it into a medium-large sized deep dish pizza pan. Let dough rise in a warm place, covered with a towel, for 30 minutes.

Midway through the rise time, form the dough again so that it is not too puffy in the middle and make indentations with your fingertips so that the filling has somewhere to go.

To prepare the cauliflower, preheat oven to 375ºF.

While oven is preheating, make the buttermilk mixture. Put flour and garlic powder in a medium-sized bowl. Set aside for a moment. In a small bowl or cup whisk together the buttermilk mixture and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. Curdled is what we are going for. Add this into the flour and garlic powder and whisk until a smooth batter forms.

Toss the cauliflower florets into the batter and toss to coat, removing any excess batter (a slotted spoon really helps here) and place on a greased rimmed baking dish. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until cauliflower is beginning to get tender and slightly golden.

Meanwhile, mix together the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir to dissolve the butter and sugar. Keep warm.

Remove cauliflower from oven. Drizzle sauce over the cauliflower, gently tossing to evenly coat. Bake for another 5-10 minutes or so. At this point it doesn’t have to be totally done—it will finish cooking on the pizza.

Combine the bleu cheese dressing ingredients in a small bowl.

To assemble the pizza, spread the blue cheese mixture evenly over the unbaked crust. Then place the par-baked cauliflower around the dough. Bake for 15 minutes or until the crust is completely baked. Drizzle the top with vegan ranch dressing and serve celery sticks alongside if desired.