Sourdough pizza dough

y little dance with the sourdough concept has been going on for a few months now. I'm pretty consistent about taking it out of the fridge every weekend, letting it warm up and feeding it, baking with it, etc.

The bread I've made has turned out well, for the most part. There have been a few more leaden loaves, but that's usually my yeast-impaired skill set showing itself... I will continue to experiment and fiddle, and as the sourdough flavor develops and deepen, I have faith that the loaves will reflect that.

A number of friends have mentioned using their sourdough starters for pancakes and pizza dough, so I thought I'd take a stab at one of those. This recipe immediately popped out to me for a couple of reasons: no additional yeast, thus short "rising" (resting) time. Bonus for a family that traditionally decides rather last minute what's on the menu! Also, I extrapolated that the lack of yeast might yield a thinner crust, something I've been aiming for with varying success.

Sure enough, this dough delivered. Soft, very easy to work with, and delicious to boot. As always, we customize the pizza toppings to suit each person's particular tastes, which meant, of course, that mine was loaded with blue cheese on top of the usual mozzarella and parmesan. (I don't know who first thought of blue cheese on pizza, but I could kiss them. Love love love it.)

Sourdough pizza crust
1 1/2 cups sourdough starter
4 -5 tablespoons olive oil
 1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour (plus a little more or less to adjust consistency)

Preheat oven to 500°F.

Mix starter, 1 tbsp olive oil, salt, and flour together in a mixing bowl until it blends and forms a ball (add more or less flour to adjust consistency; if you get it too dry just add a little more starter).

Allow dough to rest for about 30 minutes (don't look for it to rise, just to get the dough where it is easier to roll).

Roll out mixture on parchment paper or a lightly floured surface until it fits the size of your pan, turning the dough as you roll (if you want a more even circle).

Par-bake the crust on a pizza stone or pizza sheet for about 7 minutes, then remove from oven.

Before topping your pizza with any sauce, cheese, or toppings, brush the top of the crust all over with remaining olive oil (as needed), using a pastry brush (this helps keep soggy moisture out of the crust as it bakes).

Top as desired and cook until browned and cheese is melted.

If you use certain vegetables as a topping (onions are the first thing that comes to mind) you might want to cook those about halfway before topping the pizza with them (or they will be too crunchy).

Sourdough bread: an all-day affair

iddling with my sourdough starter since getting it to a ripe-ish state has been largely experimental, so far. I made a couple of loaves, but no recipe to date has really stood out as a keeper. I think a large part of the blame lies with me, as I have been improperly adapting recipes to whole wheat (or so I learned when reading a few recipes this weekend)... something you have to be a bit careful with or you'll get some pretty dense (er, heavy) loaves of bread.

Enter Pinterest, once again. And having good pinners to follow (in this case, dear friend and neighbor Laura)! I saw her pin a "slow rise sourdough" this past week and promptly tucked it away on my baking board without really looking it over. As I pulled my starter out of the fridge yesterday to warm and rest before feeding it again this week--that happens every Sunday whether I bake or not, I've been pretty good about that--I started to peruse some new sourdough recipes, and landed on the one I'd pinned just this week. I wasn't thrilled to see that the recipe was really-truly slow rise--15 hours (approximately) for the first rise, 4-5 hours for the second, but I happened to see that if your kitchen is warmer (ie, it's summer, which of course it is not), it could move along a little more quickly.

Given that my schedule isn't quite as flexible right now, getting things done on Sunday or having it timed just right for after-work baking, is kind of important. So I stuck the dough for its first rise in my convection oven with the light on, which can warm to a happy 80 degrees... and sure enough, it rose and bubbled beautifully in about 7 hours. Feeling optimistic, I hopped on to the next rise, which was also accomplished in about 1/2 the recipe time--2 hours... 45 minutes or so of a pre-warmed dutch oven and a hot oven, and voila! A lovely bedtime snack of warm bread and some of that heavenly blood orange jam I mentioned last weekend. Yum.

This bread is definitely a keeper. I'm already looking forward to making it again next weekend, though I may start earlier in the weekend, and finish on Sunday--theory is that the slower the rise, the deeper the sourdough flavor, and I'm all for that. If anything, this was more a crusty loaf of peasant-style bread, not truly SOURdough. But if getting it done quickly is on your list, this recipe adapts a-ok.

And one last note: best crust I've achieved on a loaf, ever. Crispy, crunchy, oh-so-good.