Sourdough Pizza Crust

Over the holidays, I experimented with making pizza crust with my sourdough starter that I got during the first year of the pandemic.  (I guess that's how we'll refer to the pandemic now;  the first year - 2020, the second year - 2021, the third year -2022...)  I wrote about it here when I made our first sourdough pancakes with the sourdough starter.  When I made this pizza crust recipe, everyone LOVED this pizza crust as much as the sourdough pancakes.  The crust did not really taste "sour", interestingly.  The pizza as a whole was just very yummy.   I prefer the New York style pizza crust that is very thin and crisp.  If you like the deep dish Chicago-style pizza crust, you could probably still use this recipe for that, too.  It's just how you decided to spread it out on the pan.  This recipe describes the New York style which will make 3 medium pizzas or 2 larger pizzas.  Of course, what you prefer for your toppings can be pretty much anything.  My favorite is ham and pineapple with a little fresh basil. 

Bruce likes as many toppings as possible. 

 The grandkids like cheese, the least amount of toppings as possible.

Making the pizza is as much fun as eating the pizza when it comes to this homemade sourdough crust. There is just something about sourdough "growing" in your kitchen.  It comes so alive!  With this recipe, everyone can make their own pizza with whatever toppings they prefer which is another reason it is so fun.  Bruce often makes the sourdough pancakes for breakfast when the grandkids sleep over and sometimes Lauren will join in for breakfast, too.  They all love the sourdough pancakes so much it has become a family favorite.  So, it was time to try another recipe with the starter since it has become such a staple in our kitchen.   We made this for Christmas Eve and then again for New Year's Eve.  Is this the start of a new tradition??

I will admit that this recipe does take time to make and can be tricky.  But I have figured out some tips that make it as easy as possible and we've made it successfully two times now.  First, start making the pizza dough the night before you want to eat it.  This way you can let it rise over night while you sleep since it takes about 8 hours for it to do so.  In the morning,  just pop it in the fridge to wait for when you're ready to start making the pizza crust.  This saves a lot of time and refrigerating it the next day is perfectly fine for the dough.  Also, the pizza dough is a very sticky dough.  If you refrigerate the dough, it makes handling the dough slightly easier to shape.  Also, I would recommend using double zero Pizza Flour that is specifically made for pizza crust.  It is the finest milled flour you can buy.   It allows for the dough to stretch instead of tearing when you make the crust.  It is about 12% - 13% gluten which makes it very strong, perfect for pizza crust and manhandling it, especially when a 5 year-old and 3 year-old are involved. 

                    

Makes 3 12" thin-crust pizzas or two larger pizzas

1-1/2 cups water
3/4 cup active sourdough starter (or however much leftover after you remove 4 oz. from your starter to refeed it)
3 Tbsp. olive oil
3 - 1/3 cups '00 Pizza f'lour
1 Tbsp. sugar
1-1/2 tsp. sea salt

1.  Add the water, starter, and olive oil to a large mixing bowl and whisk until well combined.  

2.  Stir in the flour, sugar, and salt with a wooden spoon, until you have a shaggy dough.  

A "shaggy dough" is actually a food preparation term that means that the dough is lumpy, yet well-mixed (no dry spots of flour) like above.  It's a cohesive ball but not a smooth one, thus "shaggy".  

3.  Now you let the dough "rest".  Set your timer for 20 minutes and do four rounds of stretching and folding (one every 20 minutes).

"Stetching and folding" dough is like kneading bread only this is what you do for a wetter type of dough like pizza crust.  It helps develop the gluten and the dough will become less sticky.  Think of the ball of dough as North, South, East and West.  Take each section and stretch it out, then fold it over itself.  It will be really sticky so just pick up a little bit at the North section of the dough, bring it toward the middle of the ball and then do it again at the East section of the ball, the South and so forth.  It won't seem like you're doing much but it actually does a lot in forming the gluten.  You can go longer than 20 minutes between stretching and folding but this is a minimum amount of time between each one.   I made the dough after dinner and then did the stretching and folding while sitting around watching TV in the evening.   After the stretching and folding is finished, the dough will not be "shaggy" anymore.  It will look more like a loose ball with some surface tension. 

4.  Cover it with a damp tea towel or plate and set it in a warm, draft free place (like an oven with the light on).  My perfect spot is on the stove top with the stove light on above it.  It will double in size in about eight hours or overnight.  In the morning, it will look like this: 

Isn't she gorgeous?!

5.  Cover the bowl of risen dough and pop it in the fridge until you're ready to make the pizza crust.  

6.  To make the crust, sprinkle your pizza pans with cornmeal.

7.  Tip out your risen dough onto a well-floured surface and divide it into three equal balls.

8.  Place the ball of dough onto the pizza pan and press down with your fingers to shape into a circle the size of your 12" pizza pan. 

Add toppings of your preferences.  We just used bottled pizza sauce this time and then added our own favorite toppings.  I would recommend using fresh mozzarella cheese from a ball.  Just cut off hunks of the cheese and place around the pizza.  This is more like a true Italian pizza instead of using grated cheese.  Also, I'd recommend fresh basil.  You can place it on the pizza before you bake it or after.  Both ways it is very tasty.  This is mine below with ham and pineapple with fresh basil.  

9.  Preheat oven to 475 degree F.   Once preheated, bake your pizza on the middle rack in the oven for 12-15 minutes 

I think next time I will make a Neapolitan-style pizza that is a style from Naples, Italy. They use pureed San Marzano tomatoes as the sauce, mozzarella cheese, fresh basil and extra-virgin olive oil.  When we were in Italy in 2016, all the pizzas we had use very minimal toppings and they were the best I've ever tasted.  My goal is to duplicate these real Italian pizzas.  Here are a few we had in Italy:

In Milan

Notice how this mozzarella isn't even melted.  It's so fresh you can taste the difference.  You wouldn't care if it was melted or not.

At Lake Como

Just plain old cheese and prosciutto, which is the meat used on pizzas in Italy.

Verona

Mushroom and prosciutto on this perfectly cooked pizza.  We need to work on getting the crust browned to perfection like this one.  Having a pizza oven would help with super high heat. 

Venice

Heavenly and perfection

Siena

That prosciutto is so generous.

Rome

After 2 weeks in Italy, we were still ordering pizza because we couldn't get enough of it. 

Pizza in Italy is nothing like the pizza in the U.S. but now with my new pizza crust recipe, I am going to have fun trying to match these most wonderful pizzas of Italy.  It's something you can never forget.  At least, I have the crust part figured out.