I haven’t made a pizza in ages and had a hankering for sourdough pizza. I’m made minor changes to how I ferment my sourdough pizza dough, I’ve realized that my pizza dough in the past had been underfermented.
I use a cast iron 9-10” skillet and my home oven to make pizza and I think you can really do great pizza at home without a specialized pizza oven. The formula below has been slightly altered from the one Will shared with us during the pizza Community Bake. Wanting to save my KA from an early death, I made this pizza dough fully by hand and have to say it really isn’t that hard to do this. I won’t bother using my KA standmixer for pizza dough again in the future.
Prepare your marinated vegetables at least 1-2 hours before time to bake. We generally eat one pizza each, each day for two days so I’ll make enough marinated veggies for the four pizzas. In a medium bowl, combine artichoke hearts, chopped onion, sliced roasted red peppers, sun dried cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives and sliced peperoncini with red wine vinegar, oregano (dried or fresh), salt and pepper and toss.
For 4 9” pizzas NY style thin crust 200 g each
Levain Build 100% hydration 35 g needed
433 g bread flour
43 g Whole grain flour (50:50 whole spelt:whole wheat)
4.76 g Diastatic malt 1%
252 g water and
41 g water hold out
8.43 g salt 1.71%
2.5 g sugar 0.5%
4.8 g olive oil 1.0%
Total flour 493.5
Total water 310.5
63% hydration water only
64% including olive oil
Sourdough version you may have to adjust the amount of levain. At 3.5% PreFerment Flour (PFF) 2-4 day retard should work.
(1) In your mixer bowl(or by hand) dissolve the Starter or yeast in all of the Final Dough Water except the HOLD OUT Water. (Add diastatic malt too)
(2) Mix in the flours until well hydrated
(3) Allow to fermentolyse for 1hr
(4) Mix in the remaining HOLD OUT Water, salt, and sugar mix until well-incorporated.
(5) Slowly drizzle in the oil until well combined.
(6) Beat or knead by hand until dough is moderately developed. The dough will be sticky and elastic. If kneading by hand, use slightly wet hands and avoid adding more flour.
(7) Oil your hands and a suitable container.
(8) Shape into a tight ball. I divide the ball into four smaller ones each for one 9” pizza at this point. Each goes into a small oiled bowl and allowed to proof for 1 hour before starting cold fermentation.
(9) Cold ferment in the refrigerator for 48-96hrs.
(10) Remove to warm up to room temp for at 3-6hr or so before use, or you can ferment at room temp. for 6hrs. 2-3 hours seem ideal 80ºF
(11) Stretch the balls into your desired size skins (see video below), top and bake at 550F (as high as your oven will go) Until the crust is browned and the cheese has melted. Spin the pie at least once to avoid burning due to oven hot spots. I have included a link to a skin stretching tutorial. Watch this video, more than a few times then go through the motions in your head. If you can see it in your mind's eye, you too can be a home oven pizzaiolo!
Heat oven to 550ºF roasting setting, with skillet in oven on baking steel on the second highest rack about 1 hour. My set up with the baking steel on the roasting rack that set up is on the third highest rack because of the added height from the roasting rack so it essentially makes the skillet on the second highest rack.
Place stretched dough into skillet and top with sauce and toppings.
If doing a pizza sauce pizza, could brush dough with olive oil before sauce.
Make sure the non oily side of the dough is down in the skillet to avoid a burnt bottom.
Bake for 3 minutes at 550ºF then rotate and bake for another 3 minutes. Remove from oven and top with the paprika mussels, enjoy.
The following video was made months ago but still shows how I shape the pizza dough.
