Sour cream, mozzarella, Sulguni cheese, pepperoni. Home oven, baking steel.
I like pizza, and I make it often. You also like pizza. Perhaps you’d like to make it as well? Here’s the recipe for my sourdough pizza, ideal for Neapolitan or NYC-style pies, baked in a home oven with a baking steel or stone, or in an outdoor oven. Scroll past the recipe if you’d like to learn more!
Servings: two 12” pizzas.
Time: 3.5 hours (mix and proof) + 1 to 14 days (fridge-ferment) + 6 hours (final proof) + 10 to 20 minutes (shape, top, and bake)
260 g high-gluten or bread flour (or all-purpose flour)
40 g (15%) whole wheat or rye flour (or any flour, really)
15 g (5%) ripe sourdough starter
Put all the dry ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer (”a KitchenAid”) outfitted with the dough hook and stir with a spatula to combine. Add the starter and about 2/3 of the water. Start the mixer on low speed and mix for 1 minute; add the rest of the water, and mix for 4 more minutes. Switch to medium speed and mix for another 5 minutes. If at any point the dough threatens to crawl out of the bowl, stop the mixer and scrape the mess back down into the bowl.
Once mixed, move the dough to a new bowl. (I prefer a shallower, wider, non-metal one myself.) Cover the bowl and let the dough rest in a warm spot (70–74°F?) for 3 hours. Every 30 minutes or so, perform a stretch-and-fold.
Scoop the dough with a flexible dough scraper onto a lightly oiled work surface and cut into two 262 g portions. Shape each portion into a ball, tucking the ends in toward the middle to form a taut, balloon-like surface on one side. Pop into a lightly oiled 16 oz deli container (do you have some from food deliveries?), messy side down. Cover and pop in the back of the fridge for 1-14 days. (I find the flavor is best around 7 days.)
6 hours before baking, remove the containers from the fridge and leave them on the counter. 2 hours before baking, uncover them. This will dry out the top somewhat, which is great; that will become the not-so-sticky bottom of your crust.
Portioned dough balls after being uncovered.
If using a home oven: 1 hour before baking, pop a baking stone or baking steel or upside-down pan on a rack 6-8" from the top broiler. Crank it up to 550ºF and leave it there.
To stretch the dough: hold the container upside down and wiggle the dough out of it gently; dont worry about whether it stays a perfect ball. Place it into a shallow, wide bowl of flour and make sure the wet end and the sides get some flour (not too much) on them. Place it on your wooden peel with the dry (previously the top) side down and press gently around the inside of the rim to make a little ringed pizza-prototype.
Then pick it up and stretch with your knuckles (don’t use your fingers). It should be very friendly, stretchy without any pullback or tearing. Stretch to 10" in size. Shimmy the peel a bit to make sure no part of the dough has stuck; repeat this shimmying every minute or so if it takes you that long to top it.
Stretching the dough using knuckles only.
My topping strategy for a standard cheese pizza: layer the dough with sliced mozzarella cheese, then add dabs of sauce, and your toppings. Now gently tug under the rim all around to stretch to 12″; the weight of the toppings will help prevent pullback.
Redistribute the toppings if needed. Shimmy again. Expertly slide onto the steel/stone/pan.
If using a home oven: set a timer for 4 minutes. Then, open the oven door and check the underside of your pizza. Almost done, while the top is still a bit pale? If so, slide a metal pizza pan (or a cookie sheet or something else thin, metal, and as large as the pie) under it. This prevents the bottom from getting overbaked. Rotate the arrangement 180º to get even baking. Set a timer for 3 minutes.
When the pizza is gorgeous, slide it out with a metal pizza peel or a large flat spatula or whatever. (Don’t use your wooden peel—that’s for shaping and launching only.) Rest it on a cooling rack for 1-2 minutes to dry out the bottom. Then move to a cutting board or plate and slice. (Don’t use your wooden peel for this either, please!)
If using an outdoor pizza oven: if you own one of these, you probably know what to do. Have at it, sport!
Sour cream, mozzarella, provolone, chives and garlic chives. Ooni Koda oven.
33% whole wheat in this dough. Aged for 9 days in the fridge.
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- - - NOTES AND MUSINGS FOLLOW - - -
A note on baker’s percentages
When a dough is “66% hydrated,” that doesn’t mean the final ball of dough is two-thirds water. Rather, what bakers mean is, water is equal to 66% of the flour weight. Got it? That way, you can measure out your flour and scale all the other ingredients to it. I no longer refer to a recipe when I mix the dough, because I’ve memorized the percentages: 66% water, 3% salt, 5% starter. I also know that I need 150 g of flour per pizza; from these figures I can easily arrive at the weight of the other ingredients. Can you do the math in your head for, say, four pizzas? It’s easy! (Or maybe I’m just a math genius. (I am not a math genius.))
Just TWO pizzas? So what’s my boyfriend going to eat?
You can easily double the recipe. I wouldn’t go beyond 2x; you can’t mix much more than a kilo of dough in a typical stand mixer. If you’re doing a big pizza party and you want to make eight pies, first of all, congratulations! second, do it in two batches.
Do you think I’m the sort of person who has sourdough starter just sitting around?
“What does it matter what you say about people?”
I get it. I wasn’t always a Sourdough Guy. So, let me give you a recipe using commercial yeast. Bonus: it’s faster!
Servings: two 12” pizzas.
Time: 3 hours (mix and proof) + 10 to 20 minutes (shape, top, and bake)
260 g high-gluten or bread flour (or all-purpose flour)
40 g (15%) whole wheat or rye flour (or any flour, really)
3 g instant yeast (~1 tsp, about half a little package thingy, 1%)
Put all the dry ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer (”a KitchenAid”) outfitted with the dough hook and stir with a spatula to combine. Add about 2/3 of the water. Start the mixer on low speed and mix for 1 minute; add the rest of the water, and mix for 4 more minutes. Switch to medium speed and mix for another 5 minutes. If at any point the dough threatens to crawl out of the bowl, stop the mixer and scrape it back down into the bowl.
Once mixed, move the dough to a new bowl. (I prefer a shallower, wider, non-metal one myself.) Cover the bowl and let the dough rest in a warm spot (70–74°C?) for 2 hours. Every 30 minutes or so, perform a stretch-and-fold.
Scoop the dough with a flexible dough scraper onto a lightly oiled work surface and cut into two 262 g portions. Shape each portion into a ball, tucking the ends in toward the middle to form a taut, balloon-like surface on one side. Place on a well floured board; flour the top some more; and cover with a clean, non-terry (non-”fuzzy”; you want “smooth”) kitchen towel. Rest for another 1-2 hours, watching for the dough to grow some more and start looking really taut and ready.
Proceed with the tossing, topping, and baking.
Carmelina brand tomatoes, sauced; garlic, fresh oregano. Ooni Koda oven.
Wait, but I don’t have a stand mixer either 😐
“It’s always gonna be something with you, isn’t it, Joe?”
No, that’s cool, that’s cool. Just mix by hand. Or by spatula, really. Mash it and fold it and fold it and mash it. Make sure you do frequent and thorough stretch-and-folds in this case. You really want to distribute everything uniformly in there.
And now, a word from our sponsors
(Note: none of the following products or brands are my sponsors. This is merely an idiom, come on.)
Juuuust in case you’re looking to add to your kitchen setup, here are the products I use for pizza making. Some of the links below include my referral code, which means I’ll get a tiny cut of the sale; the price is the same to you, though, so like, what does it matter? (I still feel a little uneasy. Sorry.)
Ooni Koda outdoor pizza oven. Simple, portable, hot as heck. Makes pizza you simply can’t get out of a home oven. (UK link, EU link. These links all give you 10% off. BAM!)
Carmelina canned tomatoes in puree. Sweet, rich, flavorful. Buy them by the case.
Tillamook sour cream. Yes, sour cream makes a perfect sauce for a white pizza—which is generally an easier base to put creative toppings on! Make sure to buy the stuff where the ingredients are just cream and cultures, none of this cornstarch/carrageenan nonsense.
For flour, look for a local mill, if possible. Shop at restaurant-supply stores!
16 oz deli containers. Washable, sturdy, endlessly reusable. Love ‘em.
CoverMate bowl covers. Reusable, washable, transparent, secure.
I also like Ooni’s bamboo and metal peels a lot. You can get very cheap ones on Amazon, but understand that they’re… cheap.
Saf-Instant yeast. It’s got the cutest box. You can keep it in the freezer for years and use it right out of the freezer.
Oxo pizza cutter wheel. Whatever wheel you buy, just make sure it’s large and heavy—that’s what helps you cut neatly.
Pizza is good. Thank you.
Sliced mozzarella, parmesan, Carmelina brand tomatoes. Home oven, baking steel.
