When you’re craving pizza, but don’t want to be inconvenienced by having to make it from scratch, it’s nice to have a range of convenience foods available. We’ve tried many brands of pizza crusts and haven’t been overly thrilled with them – too thin, too small, too expensive. While at the grocery store, I stumbled onto a box of Schar pizza crusts and promptly snapped them up. So how were they? Read on for my review…

Size:
The Schar Pizza Crusts come 2 per package – with each crust individually wrapped in plastic. Each crust was about 8 inches and weighed in around 5.3 ounces and was about 3/8 inch thick at the center and 1/4 inch thick on the edges. The crusts were definitely ‘personal sized’ for my teenaged children, although they recommend only 1/3 of the pizza as a real serving.

Price:
The Schar Pizza crust sold in my store for about $8.50, which is consistent with the price I’ve been able to find online as well. This work’s out to about $4.25 per crust.

Assuming you stick with the suggested serving size, this works out to about $1.35 per 1/3 pizza serving. In our house each pizza fed one person, so the total per serving cost for the crust portion was $4.25
Nutrition/Calories:

The Schar Pizza crust recommends you only eat 1/3 of the pizza, so (without sauce, cheese, or toppings), the calories come in around 130, with 29 carbs (27 net carbs), 2g protein and .5 g fat per serving.

If, like us, you plan to eat the whole thing yourself, the calorie count would be 390 per crust, with 87 carbs (81 net), 6 g protein, and 1.5 g fat per serving.

Texture and Flavor:

Right out of the packaging, we noticed that the crust itself was very ‘fluffy’ as well as dense and sturdy. It definitely had the hallmarks of a ‘starch heavy’ crust. Trying the ‘raw’ crust, we noted it was very starchy, with no ‘stretch’ to the crust – it broke easily into chunks for us to sample. The taste was plain, almost to the point of having no taste, with slightly sweet, chalky undertones. The mouth feel was starchy and dry, simulataneously dense and fluffy, though not completely objectionable. We knew this wasn’t the finished product. Because of the starchy nature and dry texture of the raw crust, we suspected it would absorb a lot of the sauce while cooking. This later proved to be true.
Once topped and baked as per directions, the texture of the crust softened up and the exterior crisped. True to expectation, the top layer of the crust absorbed a lot of the sauce and became moist. Total baking time was about 20-25 minutes.

The taste and texture of the finished crust reminded me almost exactly of “school pizza” – the pizza I got in the school cafeteria as a kid. Thick, a bit doughy, and more like a biscuit than a bread item. The crust added a slightly sweet note to the sauce in the pizza, which added to this effect. My husband agreed that it was like “school pizza” or “those Tony’s cheap pizza squares” – not a bad thing if you have happy childhood memories associated with them. The boys liked the crusts quite a bit, even though they were totally different than the pizzeria style crusts I usually make.

Allergens:
Top Eight: Our box did not list any allergens. HOWEVER every single box I have seen since then has listed MILK as an allergen.

Did I just miss something? The warning is in bold on the boxes I’ve seen since then. It is a possibility, as we had several days of meltdowns afterward, and I had serious issues with brain fog and pain (I have a casein intolerance). Extra Lesson of the Day: Make sure you read your labels carefully EVERY time!!

Available Online?

Yes, in a large number of online retailers.

COMPARISON

I normally make gluten free pizza crusts at home using our Easy As Pie 10 Minute Pizza recipe. The recipe yields a one pound (16oz) large pizza crust, that looks and feels like pizzeria style crust. Typically we feed all four of our family using one or two batches of this crust, at a cost of about $.89 per personal 8 inch crust. My homemade crust has roughly the same carbohydrate, fat, and protein count per person. Because I prefer pizzeria style crust 9/10 of the time over ‘school pizza’ style, and because the cost per crust is $3.35 less (a savings of $13 for my family!), and frankly because it only takes 10 minutes to make from scratch, as opposed to 20 minutes, in our house we felt the homemade crust was a better bargain (and also more convenient!).

Further, because we can’t seem to find any more crusts that don’t have a dairy warning, we’re pretty much excluded from considering using this crust as an alternative. Alas….
However, for travel purposes, or going to someone’s house, or any other reason, for you this may be a good, kid-friendly option.

If you like pizzeria style, chewy or crispy crust, be aware: this is not it.

If you like “school pizza” style crust, you’re going to love this.

naomi