Sourdough Pizza

Sourdough pizza is a mainstay in our rotating winter menu, along with the beans and rice and stuffed delicata I’ve shared.

We are fans of bulk sourdoughing, and this recipe makes 6 roughly 14 ounce doughs each.

Just like with every sourdough endeavor, we use our high gluten Sir Lancelot bread flour throughout the feeding and dough-making process. You can read more about that in my sourdough starter post.

This recipe makes 6 pizza crusts.

We have started to do two Refresh feedings on Day 1. If you can’t do this, it’s not a deal breaker, we’ve just found it helps to get the starter even more active ahead of the bulk proofing.

Here we go:

Refresh Sourdough, 11am, Day 1:

• 3/8 ounces starter (11 g)
• 1 ounce high gluten bread flour (we use Sir Lancelot flour for ALL sourdough recipes) (28 g)
• 3/4 ounce filtered water (21 g)

Refresh Sourdough, 4pm, Day 1:

• 3/8 ounces starter (11 g)
• 1 ounce high gluten bread flour (28 g)
• 3/4 ounce filtered water (21 g)

Day 1, FIRST FEEDING (8-9pm):

Ingredients listed in ounces (grams)

• 7/8 ounces starter (25 g)
• 2.375 ounces bread flour (67 g)
• 1.75 ounces water (50 g)

***Remember to SAVE the remainder of the starter and place back in your fridge for your future sourdough needs.***

Day 2, SECOND FEEDING (7am):

• 5 ounces starter (all from overnight) (142 g)
• 10.5 ounces bread flour (298 g)
• 9 ounces filtered water (255 g)

Mix together by hand again and return to warm proofing station for 4 hours or so.

Day 2, FINAL FEEDING (10:30am-11:30pm):

• All of previous feeding
• 32 ounces bread flour (907 g)
• 22.5 ounces warm filtered water (638 g)
• 1 ounce sea salt or kosher salt (28 g)
• 7/8 ounce sugar (25 g)
• 2 1/4 ounces olive oil (64 g) ***keep separate and don’t add yet***

Warm the water in the microwave for about 30-45 seconds. This will speed up the fermentation process.

IMPORTANT: Mix together all ingredients EXCEPT the olive oil.

Measure olive oil out in a separate bowl/cup and wait to incorporate until you switch to the bread hook.

Mix with a paddle attachment in Kitchenaid for about 30-45 seconds.

Let stand for a minute or two. Switch to bread hook attachment.

Add olive oil and mix until combined.

Remove from mixer and bring to sink. With wet hands, stretch the dough for the first of three times.

As I mentioned, this is a wetter dough. I use wet hands and gently stretch it. This is essential for developing the gluten and for ease of shaping and stretching the dough.

Set in a warm area to proof. Repeat stretches every hour. After the third stretch, you’re ready to measure out the dough and refrigerate for a cold proof.

We purchased a new scale this winter and love it. It has a baker’s percentage which means we can set it to 100% and then simply measure out the percent we need. For example, for bread, we make that in 3 loaves, so we measure out 33.3%.

For pizza, it’s 6 doughs, so we measure out 16.6%.

You can pick this scale up via Amazon. Here’s a link to my storefront.

We have invested in Pyrex snapware and ordered half a dozen for pizza dough. Clearly they are popular and had leftovers in them (they nest so well in the fridge they are in high demand here). I also put these square containers in my Sourdough list on Amazon.

We refrigerate at least overnight before baking. Usually we have pizza on a Sunday / Thursday or a Tuesday / Friday.

Bring as many doughs as you need out of the fridge one hour before you want to shape them. This will make them easier to work with. We bake 3 at a time and our oven has 3 baking stones too.

Baking the Pizza

Preheat oven to 550 with your pizza stones inside.

Stretch your dough out on a well-floured surface. We like to stretch them by hand but you can also use a rolling pin. When to the size you like (they make 12-14” pizzas each), place it on a sheet of parchment and set aside.

Repeat for the number of doughs you’ll be baking.

Top each pizza as desired and bake for 8 minutes. Check for doneness and even baking. Our new (and not so great) oven bakes inconsistently from top to bottom shelf, even with convention bake so we have to take some out and move some around during baking for even and consistent baking results.

Hope this becomes part of your family’s routine and makes weeknight dinners a little easier with dough at the ready in the fridge!