Bubbly Sourdough Pizza Crust for a Pizza Oven
This is our favorite recipe for fluffy, chewy sourdough pizza crust that results in a crisp bottom and soft bite. This pizza dough is naturally fermented with active sourdough starter and has wonderful flavor and texture!
Yield: 5 medium pizzas
Ingredients
- 120 grams sourdough starter, fed and at its peak
- 385 grams slightly warm water (about 85 degrees F)
- 530 grams King Arthur Bread Flour
- 25 grams all purpose flour
- 8 grams olive oil
- 13 grams fine sea salt
- fine cornmeal for pizza peel
- favorite pizza sauce
- toppings
Instructions
- Add starter and water to the bowl of a stand mixer. Stir with a fork to loosen starter and disperse starter. Add flour and olive oil. Stir with a spatula to incorporate flour, then put bowl onto stand mixer and attach dough hook. Mix on low speed for about 30 seconds to until no flour streaks remain. Add salt to top of dough and let the dough rest, covered, for 30 minutes.
- After the rest, turn the mixer of medium, speed 4 of a Kitchenaid stand mixer, and mix for 8 minutes. * You will notice this is a very wet dough, and that's okay.
- Remove bowl from mixer and cover with a towel. Let dough sit for 30 minutes, then do 2 sets of stretch and folds around the bowl. Let dough rest for another 30 minutes, then do 2 sets of stretch of folds around the bowl. Cover, and let dough bulk ferment about 4ish more hours if your house is at 70 degrees F (will take less time if it is warmer in your home), until dough is just short of doubling in size.
- Once doubled, place parchment paper on large baking sheet and spray with non-stick spray such as olive oil. Turn dough out onto floured surface and let rest for 15 minutes. The dough will be sticky and that is okay!
- Dust the top of the dough with flour and your hands. Using a bench scraper, cut the dough into about 5 pieces weighing about 200 grams each. Flour your hands generously, and stretch a corner of the dough out and bring it back to the middle, doing this with each corner of the dough so you're forming a ball. Use a bit of tension on the surface to make the ball a bit tighter, and close the bottom.
- Place dough into a greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Repeat with all dough balls.
- At this point you can let the dough rise on the counter for 45 minutes, for its second rise, until it has grown a bit and is puffier. Or you can put the pan with dough balls straight into the refrigerator, covered, and leave them in for 6 to 48 hours. Take dough out an hour before you want to make the pizza.
- 1 hour before you're ready to make the pizzas, lay out all of your ingredients at a station so you can work quickly once the dough is on the pizza peel.
- 20 minutes before you're going to cook the pizza, turn on both the hearth and dome burners of the pizza oven. I turn the dome to high and the hearth to medium. Use an infrared gun to test top of the dome, which you want to be around 750 degrees F and the hearth to be around 450 degrees F.
- Liberally dust your pizza peel with fine ground cornmeal.
- Dust top of dough ball with flour. With floured hands, pick up a dough ball and hold up with two hands on corners of the dough. The dough will start to droop downward with gravity, and you'll rotate the dough clockwise, like you're turning a steering wheel. And it will be a bit sticky, just use more flour as needed. That's okay! Bring it down to the pizza peel, and lightly press out into a circle, stretching the corners. Do NOT use a rolling pin. This will make the dough too thin, resulting in a tougher crust. You're aiming for each pizza to be around 7-8 inches in diameter. Don't try to make the biggest pizza. Keeping it smaller will result in the fluffiest baked dough. Stretch and adjust the dough a little more, aiming to position one edge of the pizza all the way at the front edge of the peel.
- Spread with a light amount of sauce, and put the the rest of your toppings on, including cheese. Error on the side of less toppings that piling it super full, to be sure the crust can handle the weight. Check the temperature of the dome and hearth to make sure they are about 750 degrees F for the dome and 450 degrees F for the hearth.
- Shimmy the pizza to make sure no edges are sticking to it. If so, gently lift that edge of dough up and put down more cornmeal. Open the doors to the pizza oven and shimmy the pizza onto the stone. Close the doors and let cook for 4 minutes, then check it to see how the top and bottom are coming along. You can cook two pizzas at once, which is what I do. When done to your liking, open the doors and remove the pizzas with your pizza peel. Set on wire rack and let cool for 2 to 3 minutes before slicing. Repeat with remaining dough.
Notes
*this is a WET dough, and that's okay! use flour as you need while working with the dough after it's bulk ferment, to keep it from sticking to your hands or surface.