sourdough pizza

sourdough pizza

When someone asks, “what’s your favorite food?”  I’ll usually answer with pizza.  I subscribe to the mantra “there is no bad pizza, only better pizza.”

I have so many pizza memories that deeply marked me.  The earliest were in Italy, where I spent a summer in college.  There I was introduced to a roman style of pizza, known as pizza al taglio.  In any roman (or Italian) piazza, it was almost guaranteed that you could find a pizza shop and a gelato shop.  Inside the pizza shop, you’d find pizza al taglio displayed on a counter behind a glass partition.  It was a long rectangular shape that was only about 6” wide and you’d order by separating your hands to represent the length of piece you wanted.  The shop keeper would quickly reheat it in a salamander style oven.  It was Rome’s fast food.  But it had things like squash blossoms, zucchini, different cured meats, cured olives, Italian tomatoes, etc.  A foodie’s fast food. 

A couple years after my return from Italy, I had graduated college, gotten a full-time job, and bought a house.  I came across a recipe for pissaladiere in Cook’s Illustrated and used this as the basis for my first pizza dough.  It was made with active dry yeast, and I found the longer I let the yeast activate in water and a bit of honey, the better the flavor.  And the longer I left the dough to sit, the better the flavor.  In my new kitchen, I had an old (1970’s) GE electric range, coil burners and all.  I would crank the oven as hot as it would go with a pizza stone heating inside.  I’d make margherita, using fresh mozzarella, a basic sauce of canned San Marzano tomatoes broken apart with my hands, and add basil after cooking.  While it had a long way to go, it was the best homemade pizza I’d ever had.  A journey through many wood-fired pizza joints making Neapolitan style pizza ensued.

For a birthday, my best friend and I even took a pizza class at a well-known Seattle-based wood fired pizza joint.  We learned how to make a delicate, tender, active dry yeast dough.

Fast forward 10 years, a young couple opened a pizza joint not far from where I lived.  They had a wood fired pizza oven and used sourdough.  To this day, it’s the best pizza I’ve had.  They are true artisans and have mastered their full range of offerings – from the dough to the combinations, to the few other items they have on their menu – all are the best of the best.

When my now husband and I first met and started talking, he asked what I was doing for my birthday that evening.  I shared that a dear friend was taking me out to pizza here.  He had been wanting to visit this place but hadn’t yet.  I invited him to join us.  In my memory, this was one of our first “dates.”  It wasn’t about us being alone – he got to share it with my dear friend and I.  But that’s the sweetest part of a good relationship – it’s not only about solo romantic dates, but also about bringing someone into your life to be a part of it.  We ate wonderful pizza, he paid the bill for the table, and even brought along a giant chocolate chip cookie for a birthday present.  This memory will forever remain etched in my mind.

At home, we continued to tinker with various pizza dough recipes.  One of which was the recipe the Seattle joint sent the class home with.  When my husband made it the first time, I thought we’d found what we were looking for.  It was a two-day process, and resulted in the most tender, delicate dough I’ve had.  Think of the texture of a fresh glazed doughnut, without the sugar and fried dough elements.  I even exclaimed – this may very well be the best pizza I’ve had.  That recipe remains my favorite active dry yeast dough today.

Forever on the search for a better, or at least different, version we felt like we really wanted to find a great sourdough recipe.  My husband is a great sourdough bread baker (thanks to Chad Robertson’s written instruction and lots of trial and error on behalf of my husband), so there’s always a pull to try a sourdough version of any dough.  Plus, Chad’s story of making pizza in a home oven is super inspiring.  We had success with the first trial of this recipe, and it’s become our “go to” for homemade pizza.

sourdough pizza
Yield: 4 12-inch pizzas

sourdough pizza

Prep Time: 1 day 22 hours
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 1 day 22 hours 20 minutes

Ingredients

LEVAIN: essentially just a freshly fed starter

  • 47 grams Type 00 Flour (can use All Purpose, if needed)
  • 47 grams water (about 75-degrees)
  • 5 grams ripe sourdough starter

DOUGH

  • 582 grams Type 00 Flour (again, AP is ok if needed)
  • 70 grams Whole Wheat Flour
  • 435 grams water (about 75-degrees)
  • 14 grams salt
  • 99 grams Levain (from above)

TOPPINGS

  • 6-8 Brussel sprouts, thinly shaved
  • 2-3 pieces of bacon, cooked and coarsely chopped
  • Truffle oil
  • 6-8 ounces mozzarella cheese
  • 1/2 lb ground sausage, browned and crumbled (believe it or not, Jimmy Dean is a good choice)
  • Fennel bulb, thinly shaved and sautéed in olive oil
  • Red chili flakes
  • Kosher salt
  • Parmesan, pecorino, or romano cheese for serving

Instructions

Levain:  Using your hands, mix ingredients together in either a small jar with a lid or a large container with a lid that you can use to mix the dough in the next step.  I use a 6-quart Cambro style commercial grade bucket like this.  The Type 00 flour will feel very fine and loose.  Let sit for 12 hours, or overnight, at warm room temperature (74-76 degrees).

Dough:  Once levain shows signs of bubbles on top and along the sides, using a stand-mixer with a dough hook, combine the levain with the flour, water, and salt called for in the dough ingredients.  Mix on low speed until just incorporated.  You’ll need to scrape the bottom of the mixing bowl to ensure all the flour is incorporated.  Next, increase the mixer to medium speed and mix for 3-4 minutes until the dough starts to cling to the dough hook.  Transfer the dough back to the large container and cover.

For the next 1.5 hours, you’re going to stretch and fold the dough every 30 minutes.  Using a timer, after the first 30 minutes, wet your hands and lift one side of the dough. You’ll want to slowly stretch the dough so that it stretches but doesn’t tear.  You’ll need to lift quite a bit of dough and slowly let it stretch and fall back into the container.  Once you’ve reached the end of the dough in your hands, fold the remaining dough over to the opposite side of the container and tuck it to the bottom of the container. Work your way around the container until you’ve done this 4 times.  Cover container and allow dough to rest for another 30 minutes.  You’ll do this a total of 3 times.  After stretching and folding the last time, cover the container and let the dough rest for another hour.

Next, place container in the refrigerator for about 24 hours (overnight).

After the 24-hour refrigeration, you’ll want to divide and shape the dough.  First, grease a large baking dish with olive oil.  Next, dump the dough container onto a clean counter.  Divide the dough into four equal pieces (~290 grams each).  You’ll need a benchknife to shape the dough appropriately.  This requires a bit of technique, but the learning curve is short, and you’ll pick it up quickly.  Maurizio Leo has a great video illustrating the tucking and folding process of shaping the dough.  In the end, a tight skin and nice, clean round shape is what you’re looking to achieve.  Transfer the dough to the baking dish and cover with plastic wrap.  Let rest at room temperature for 6 hours.

Once your dough has rested for 5 hours, preheat the oven.  Using an oven rack in the top third of the oven, place a baking stone on the rack and turn the oven as hot as it will go – we preheat at 550 degrees.  You’ll want to preheat at temp for 1 hour.

Toppings: Prepare the toppings and place in individual small bowls or cups so that you can cleanly and quickly access when building the pizza.

Pizza: Once the dough is proofed, shape the crust.  If you have a pizza peel, lightly flour the top.  If you don’t have a pizza peel, you can build the pizza on the baking stone in the oven being careful not to burn yourself.  Flour both your work surface and the top of one of your dough balls.  After flouring your hands, shape them like a triangle or an inverted V.  Using your fingers, press the triangle shape down at the top and work your way toward your body.  Avoid pressing the edges of the dough, as you’ll want these to rise as high as possible.  After tamping the dough down, you can pick it up gently and place on the knuckles of your fisted dominate hand.  From here, you’ll roll your fist, stretching the dough out further.  The dough will be fragile, and you’ll want to avoid tearing it.  You can do this by supporting the weight of the edge of the dough with your non dominate hand.  This will take some practice, but it doesn’t have to be perfect.  Imperfectly shaped dough will still taste great!  Once you reach your desired size (make sure it will fit on your baking stone), place the dough either on your pizza peel (preferred) or directly on your baking stone.  From here, you’ll want to top your pizza quickly.  If using a peel, the dough will eventually start to stick to the peel and be more difficult to slide onto the stone.  If using the direct to stone approach, you’ll be letting all the heat out of your preheated oven.

Brussel Sprouts & Bacon

Start with olive oil and brush across entire surface.  Atop the oil, sprinkle some salt.  Next add mozzarella, then shaved Brussel sprouts and bacon to the top. 

Sausage & Fennel

Again, start with an olive oil “sauce,” and add crumbled sausage and shaved fennel.  Top with mozzarella and a small amount of red chili flakes.

After topping the pizza, close oven and bake at 500 for 4-6 minutes.  Then set oven to High Broil and broil for approximately 2 minutes until the top and crust develop nice coloring.  You’ll want the crust to blister with a dark brown nearly black color.  Remove pizza from oven.  For the Brussel sprout and bacon pizza, lightly drizzle with truffle oil.  Top both with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Notes

Total Time: ~46 hours

  1. Levain (12 hrs
  2. Mix (20 mins)
  3. Warm Fermentation (2.5 hrs): stretch & fold (90 mins); rest (1 hr)
  4. Cold Fermentation (24 hours/overnight)
  5. Divide & Shape (20 mins)
  6. Proof (6 hrs)

Sample Timeline

For instance, if I want to make pizza Thursday night, this is the schedule I’d follow.

Tue 8:30 pm             Levain

Wed 8:30 am            Mix

Wed 9:00 am            Warm Fermentation

Wed 11:30 am            Cold Fermentation

Thu 11:30 am             Divide & Shape

Thu 12:00 pm            Proof

Thu 5:00 pm             Preheat Oven

Thu 6:00 pm             Bake

A few notes on things that you’ll need to be successful with this recipe:

Sourdough Starter:  In order to make this (or any other sourdough) recipe, you’ll need to have a well-developed sourdough starter.  You do not need to buy this.  There is no magic that happens in creating this that prevents you from making it in your own kitchen with very humble ingredients – it’s just flour and water. Don’t let online marketing of a “third generation starter given to you by great Aunt Betty on the plains of Oklahoma” suck you in.  You’ve got this – it’s already in your own kitchen.  Use Chad Robertson’s resources to get this started and prepare you for many sourdough recipes down the road.

Food scale: You’ll need an accurate food scale to measure flour, water, and salt weight.  This is the one I use.  Find one that works for your budget.  Must have features are tare, ability to toggle between different unit measurements (ounces, grams, etc.), and measurements out to one-tenth of an ounce.

Time and attention:  Anytime you see sourdough in a recipe, know that there is a significant amount of time and attention needed to create the bread. This recipe is no different.  It is not a lot of work, but it does require attention at specific times to develop the dough.  This is a good recipe to make when you’re planning to be home for a couple of days.  You won’t have to spend a lot of time on it and any given time, but it will need you to give it short bits of attention to properly develop the dough.  For this reason, I’d classify this as a weekend at home recipe.

Technique:  In addition to time and attention, sourdough should also trigger technique in your mind.  While this recipe is nowhere near as technical as a loaf of sourdough, it does require certain technique to achieve the right outcome.  In the recipe above, I’ve shared how I make the dough and achieve a great pizza crust.  If you’re not getting a good outcome or want to develop the technique from someone far more qualified than I, consider picking up The Perfect Loaf by Maurizio Leo or browsing his website.

Recipe inspiration from Serious Pie, Maurizio Leo, Chad Robertson, and others.