Sourdough Pizza

I'm always looking for new ways to use my sourdough.  A while back I found a great recipe for sourdough pizza crust on Kitchen Stewardship.  I've been wanting to try it for a while.  Since ham pizza is Rebecca's favorite, and we have a bunch of good quality (nitrite/nitrate free) ham leftover from Christmas I figured it was a great time to try it.

The recipe is very easy to make.  And you do all the dough prep ahead of time so that dinner time is easy.  The end result...great!  I thought it was very good.  The recipe made enough dough for one large rectangular pizza.  Only a couple issues with our pizza.  First, I forgot to buy mozzarella cheese...so ours had a combo of mild cheddar, marble and parmesan :)  Still tasted great.  The other thing is that the recipe says to put the dough on Silpat.  Which I did.  And it works great.  But I left it on the Silpat...and my pizza cutter went through it :(  So that one had to go in the trash...and they're not cheap!  So do take the pizza off the Silpat before cutting.  After that incident I put the pizza on a large wood cutting board.  Worked well.  Honestly I think it would work just fine to not even use a Silpat in the first place.  You could put the dough right on the pan.  You could dust the pan with cornmeal or use parchment paper.

Aside from that the pizza was really good.  I thought it had a great texture...not too thin, not too thick.  I will be making sourdough pizza again for sure.

Sourdough Pizza

1 1/2 cups “discarded” sourdough starter (I just use my sd starter normally...I never discard anything.)
2 Tbsp. olive oil
3/4 tsp. salt
1 – 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (I used 3/4 cups ww, 1/4 cup rye and 1/2 cup sprouted ww...just what I had on hand)
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sauce - I used my homeamde pizza sauce.
toppings - I used a combo of cheeses, ham, broccoli, peppers and sauteed onion.

Mix the ingredients together, working in flour until you have a soft dough. If it gets too dry add more starter or water.

Once kneaded for about 5 minutes (I did it by hand), cover and let rest for 30-60 minutes.

After resting, roll out the dough on your Silpat or baking stone. Transfer the Silpat with the dough onto the baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out and leave at room temperature for at least seven hours (mine rested for at least 11 hours). The crust will rise some as it soaks. (You can also bake right away without the extra “soak” time.)

Seven or more hours later, heat the oven to 450 degrees F. Bake the crust for 5 minutes.

Then add sauce and desired toppings to pizza. Put pizza back in oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and starting to brown (I baked mine for about 15 min.).

You can also freeze the pizza crusts after they have been par-baked and save them for future use.