Sourdough Pizza

Once you have your starter  this crust takes only and hour or so to make.  Rather fast for a pizza crust.  The recipe makes two crusts so if you don’t need the other one you can refrigerate it for 2-3 days or it freezes very well.

Sourdough Pizza crust 

• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1/2 tsp instant yeast
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1 cup sourdough starter
• 1tsp salt (preferably kosher or fine sea salt)
• 3 tbs olive oil
• 3-4 cups bread flour
• semolina or cornmeal for dusting

Sauce

• 14-16oz can of diced tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp basil
• salt and pepper to taste
• optional – 1 tsp red pepper flake

First mix the water, instant yeast and sugar into a bowl.  Wait till bubbly, 5-10 minutes.

Next add the starter, salt, olive oil, yeast mixture and 2 cups of flour into a mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer.  Then mix until incorporated using a spatula or a dough hook.

The dough is just starting to pull from the sides and form a ball.

Now slowly add flour a 1/4 cup at a time until the mixture is fully in a ball and not too sticky.  If you are using your mixer you will see the dough form a single ball and not stick to the edges.  Due to the humidity and temperature where you are located this could take as little at 2-3/4 cups and as much as 4 cups of flour.  When I made the dough it took roughly 3-1/4 cups of flour.

Once the dough forms a ball dust a surface with flour and kneed it for 2-3 minutes.  If you don’t have a mixer, you may want to incorporate a tad bit more flour during the kneeding stage.

Now divide the dough into two equal portions and either let both rise to form two pizzas or refrigerate one or both.  If you refrigerate both and let them rest they will develop a stronger sour dough flavor.

Now cover the dough with a towel and let rise for 30-60 minutes.  It will rise but not quite double.  Once risen, form the pizza into 12-16 inch circles. 

Place the pizza on a peel or a upside down cookie sheet if you are using a pizza stone or place on a pizza pan.  Now lightly cover with sauce and your favorite toppings.  I was short on toppings so I used green peppers, green onions and mozzarella cheese.

 Bake at the highest temperature that your oven will go.  Most home ovens will go somewhere between  500-550 degrees.  Mine would go as high as 550.  I then baked it on a pizza stone for 12-14 minutes.  When you see the cheese start to brown you know your pizza is done.

Remove from the oven, cut, and enjoy.

I hope you try this one.  Sourdough pizza is amazing and quite possibly the best pizza around.  If you need a sourdough starter click here for my post on making sourdough starters.