In my husband’s opinion this is the most important sourdough recipe I’ve made… pizza and tacos are his love language.
We’ve been having pizza night every week while I’ve been perfecting this recipe and as much as I like variety, I think we’ll keep up the tradition still.
I like to make the dough at least 2 or 3 days ahead so the flavor really develops. There was a pizza place we went to when I was a kid, Uncle Milt’s. We rarely ate out so it was quite a treat for our family of 7. They had an arcade room and a giant pipe organ. They played silent movies and someone played the music for it on the organ. They had a disco ball too, I think? Oh, and some poor employee wore a pink panther costume occasionally! They closed it down years ago and while I in no way can reproduce the atmosphere the pizza as I remember it had a sourdough flavor. So whether I’m recalling the flavor correctly or not this is definitely the way I’m making pizza crust from now on! Both flavor and texture are exactly where I want them!
I like to heat my steels at 475 degrees but you can go up to 500. I also like placing my steel on the middle rack but play around with that and adjust as desired.
After the first proof at room temperature you can see the dough has risen double.
Don’t be alarmed if your dough has fallen while refrigerated. This dough has been chilled for over 3 days and is ready to use!
I am fortunate enough to have double ovens. (It would be really hard to not have them anymore!) I have 2 large rectangular baking steels after many broken pizza stones and I love them so much more! So I can bake 4 pizzas at a time now.
By putting each crust on parchment paper it makes it much easier to slide them onto the steel. (and no clean up!) I’m also able to get all the pizzas ready to go and toppings on them while the steel is heating up.
The dough is much easier to shape while cold but as it warms up it will get more and more sticky and difficult to work with.
I used to parbake the pizza crust for pizza parties but you just don’t get the same crust as the unbaked dough hitting that hot steel! This makes things so much easier using the parchment!
Ingredients
For 2 pizzas:
- 200 grams sourdough starter
- 200 grams water
- 300 grams flour (unbleached all purpose, bread, up to half whole wheat)
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
For 8 pizzas:
- 800 grams sourdough starter
- 800 grams water
- 1200 grams flour (I usually do 800 grams unbleached all purpose and 400 grams white whole wheat)
- 4 teaspoons fine sea salt
Instructions
FOR BEGINNING IN AM:
- Around 9 AM, combine the starter, water, and salt together. Mix to combine well.
- Add flour and mix until dough comes together. Dough will be shaggy and wet.
- Leave covered at room temperature for 1 hour.
- At 10 AM, do a series of pulls and folds. Leave covered on the counter all day.
- Around 8-9 PM, place container in the refrigerator for a minimum of 12 hours, or up to a few days.
- An hour before you want to cook the pizza place your baking steel or stone on the middle rack in the oven and heat at 475 degrees.
- While heating, remove dough from fridge and using a lightly floured surface divide dough into 2 or 8, depending how much dough you made.
- Use your hand to stretch dough into the size desired. Place each pizza crust on a piece of parchment paper.
- Top with desired toppings. When steel or stone is hot cook pizza for 12 minutes (or until cooked to desired color).
FOR BEGINNING IN PM:
- Around 4 PM, combine the starter, water, and salt together. Mix to combine well.
- Add flour and mix until dough comes together. Dough will be shaggy.
- Leave covered at room temperature for 1 hour.
- Around 5 PM, do a series of stretches and pulls. Leave overnight on the counter, covered.
- The next morning place container in the refrigerator for a minimum of 12 hours, or up to a few days.
- An hour before you want to cook the pizza place your baking steel or stone on the middle rack in the oven and heat at 475 degrees.
- While heating, remove dough from fridge and using a lightly floured surface divide dough into 2 or 8, depending how much dough you made.
- Use your hand to stretch dough into the size desired. Place each pizza crust on a piece of parchment paper.
- Top with desired toppings. When steel or stone is hot cook pizza for 12 minutes (or until cooked to desired color).
