Sourdough pizza…dough

Remember Matt’s sourdough starter baby?  Well two years later, it’s still alive and kicking (figuratively speaking).  I’ve made numerous  bread loaves – some successful, others, to be honest, terrible.  But it’s been a learning experience throughout and it’s been great to pass on the starter to friends and see what they’ve done with it.  It’s like watching my friends raise their kids.  For example, PK has become and ace waffle maker, adding corn meal to the recipe which adds a whole new dimension of flavor and texture to the already sumptuous and rich sourdough waffles.

And my friend Niels has from the get go baked beautiful and tasty loaves and was the first person I knew to do a sourdough rye which he brought to our last dumpling party but which was unfortunately  consumed before I had a chance to take a photo.  It was delicious though. And he’s also the one who advised and reminded me that to bake  a good loaf, you have to get the starter going again so it’s really active and really productive.  So recently, if I make bread, or waffles or pizzza dough, I make sure – per Niels reminder – to take the starter out of the fridge in the morning, stir it up and get it bubbling again, feed it once or maybe two times over the course of a day (maybe pouring off some of the excess  (I know wasteful, but if you’re not making waffles or pizza dough what are you going to do with so much starter).  So by the time I’m ready to make the dough some time in the evening, it’s super bubbly and has that really fermented sour smell.  The last few times I made bread this is what I did and it made a noticeable difference.  I also made a really good sour dough pizza dough.  Here’s the rough recipe:

1 cup of starter
3 cups of bread baking flour
about 3/4 cup – 1 cup of water (you can add a little more or use less depending on how wet you want the dough)
1 1/2 tsp of fine sea salt
1 1/2 tsp of sugar

Mix all the contents until you have a nice dough and like the no knead bread, you let this dough mixture proof for about 18 hours until it gets really bubbly and rises until it’s about twice its original volume. Then you can punch it down and roll it into you pizza crust and let the crusts proof for about fifteen minutes to half an hour – per Saveur Magazine‘s recommendation – so they’ve risen again too. Then put your toppings on and bake in your preheated to 500 degree oven. Hopefully you have a pizza stone. The dough should be crusty, chewy and tangy. And the pizza should be delicious. If not, you failed.

Here's my pizza baking in the oven

The finished pizza (toppings: pepperoni, olives, mushrooms, bell peppers, cheeze, sauce)

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3 thoughts on “Sourdough pizza…dough

  1. Pingback: Sourdough Pizza

  2. Is the sourdough still alive and kicking? Can I please get some of your starter to bake my own bread/pizza for my boys? I’m from HK and now reside in South Bay with my family. We’re also Tings. =) I actually came across your blog today while I was thinking about starting a blog for my boys. Thank you for the wonderful recipes and videos! Good luck on your dumpling venture!

  3. Hi Goo,
    Sorry just getting this. Been a little remiss on the blog. First of all, more Tings in the house?! Yes! Always nice to have company in the Ting department. As for the starter, alive and bubbling. Just made sourdough waffles this past weekend. You’re welcome to have some. If you’re ever up in the East bay, let me know. You can PM me via email. What might be interesting to do to is start your own starter. Just make a mix of equal parts water and flour. Leave uncovered for a day or so and then cover it with plastic wrap. In a few days it might start bubbling itself. That means there are live yeast cultures that have colonized your flour mixture and that could be your very own starter. Give it a shot and let me know what happens.

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