Sourdough Pizza Crust (Soy free, Nut free, Egg free)

High quality homemade sourdough pizza is attainable, delicious, and absolutely worth the effort. Our family has been doing “Friday Night Pizza Night” for years and years, and it’s only gotten better over time. We will occasionally order or buy pizzas, but now that I’ve developed this sourdough crust recipe, it’s hard to imagine eating anything else. The crust’s flavor has depth, but is not sour tasting. It’s light and airy and chewy- which is just about everything you want in a pizza crust texture. Making pizza at home is a fun event, and I’ll take you through the easy steps to make your own delicious sourdough crust, with minimal equipment and ingredients.

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Let the pizza making begin!

The steps:

• **If you already know sourdough terms and steps, like “stretch and fold”, feel free to skip ahead of the first few steps.**
• Before you do anything else, you need to have some active bubbly sourdough starter. If you’re new to sourdough, you might be able to get some starter from a friend, coworker, or family member who can help you out. There are also lots of tutorials online for how to make your own starter. I made mine from scratch and her name is LouAnn (naming your starter is fun- it’s alive after all!)
• You’re going to then mix your bubbly starter into a bowl with lukewarm water, a little sugar, salt, and extra virgin olive oil.
• Once that’s mixed, you then add your bread flour (you can also use all purpose flour).
• Combine everything until it makes a rough shaggy ball, as seen in the first picture below. Cover this bowl with a lid or plastic wrap and let it sit for 30 minutes.
• Next, you’re going to shape your dough into a smoother ball. You do this by grabbing little sections from the bottom and pulling them up and over into the top center of the dough. Go all around the dough, doing this about 20 times to get a mostly smooth ball. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes.
• The next step is going to be your series of “stretch and folds”. Here’s what this entails:
  • Grab a 1/4 section of the dough and pull it straight up. You may need to hold the rest of the dough down with your other hand. Fold this stretched part over the top of the dough. You do this four times total, making a 1/4 turn of the bowl each time. Then, flip the dough over, so the seams are down. The second picture below shows a section of dough being stretched.
  • Once you have done the stretch and fold and flipped it over, cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes. This completes your first of 3 “stretch and folds”. You’re going to do what you just did two more times, with 30 minutes of covering the dough and letting it rest between each.
  • The dough will become smoother and more stretchy as you go along (see third picture below).
• Cover the dough again and let it rise until doubled in size, the dough is pulling away from the sides of the bowl, and you see bigger air pockets. See the fourth picture below for my risen dough. This rise will take about 5-8 hours, depending on your climate and conditions of your home. This is an easy step to do overnight, either on the counter or in the oven with just the oven light on.
• Once your dough has doubled in size, you can either knock it down, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate (1-2 days)/freeze (up to 2 weeks) until needed; or you can make your pizza.
• On a lightly floured surface, turn out your dough and divide it in half. I like to use gluten free all purpose flour, or rice flour, to dust the work surface, but you can use regular flour as well.
• Roll out each half into a 12in. circle with a rolling pin.
• Add cornmeal to a 12in. pizza pan, or regular baking sheet, and place your dough on the pan.
• Top with sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, or whatever else you like.
• Bake in an oven at 475F (246C) for about 15 minutes, or until your crust is browning on top and slightly on bottom. You may want to start with 12 minutes, and add a minute or two at a time from there.
  • I like to bake both pizzas at the same time, but I switch which racks they’re on halfway through. This helps the pizzas to get a pretty even bake.
• My favorite way to finish off homemade pizza is with a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt flakes! It really brings out the flavors. You can also brush some melted butter and garlic salt on the crust, which is delicious, but totally optional.
• Below I will give some timeline options for how to plan your sourdough pizza crust.
• To recap:
  • Mix dough, then rest for 30 minutes.
  • Shape dough, then rest for 30 minutes.
  • Stretch and fold, then rest for 30 minutes.
  • Stretch and fold, then rest for 30 minutes.
  • Stretch and fold, then rest for 30 minutes.
  • Rise until doubled, about 5-8 hours.
  • Divide in half, roll out, add toppings, and bake.

Timeline ideas to have pizza on a Friday night:

• The “Working 9-5” timeline:
  • Feed sourdough starter in the morning before work on Thursday.
  • Mix the ingredients and do the stretch and folds after work. This takes about 2.5 hours, so subtract that from your bedtime. If you go to bed at 10pm, start at about 7:30pm, or a little earlier.
  • Cover the dough and let it rise overnight.
  • Turn the dough out, knock out the air, wrap it in plastic wrap, and place it in the refrigerator until dinner time.
  • About 30 minutes before you want to eat, preheat your oven to 475F (246C), divide and roll out your dough, top, and bake.
• The “Most Efficient” timeline:
  • Feed your sourdough starter Thursday night before you go to bed and let it get bubbly overnight.
  • In the morning, preferably no more than 12 hours after you feed the starter, mix the ingredients and do the stretch and folds. You want to finish this step about 5-8 hours before you eat, so aim to be finished by about 10am-12pm. Start the first step about 2.5 hours before that.
  • Cover the dough and let it rise in a warm place until about 30 minutes before you want to eat.
  • About 30 minutes before you want to eat, preheat your oven to 475F (246C), divide and roll out your dough, top, and bake.
• The “Utilize the Fridge/Freezer” timeline:
  • Do the initial mixing and stretch and folds when the time works for you.
  • Let the dough rise, just make sure you or someone else can do the next step after about 5-8 hours of rising.
  • Knock the air out of the dough and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. Place this in the refrigerator or freezer. Add an extra layer of plastic wrap for the freezer option.
  • The dough can be stored in the refrigerator for a couple of days, or in the freezer for a couple weeks, so pull it out when it’s convenient for you to then make and bake your pizza.
  • If you use the freezer, make sure to let your dough thaw with plenty of time before you need it. You can pull it out early in the morning and set it out on the counter to thaw for dinner that same night.

Substitutions:

• You can use coconut sugar in place of white granulated sugar.
• Melted bacon fat, avocado oil, or another oil of your choice can replace the extra virgin olive oil. I don’t recommend coconut oil, since it has a strong flavor.
• I have not tried this recipe with anything but white bread flour, but you can also use regular all purpose white flour. Switching out a little whole wheat flour for the white flour should be okay, but I have not tested it.
• The toppings are up to you! We often just do a 3 cheese and a pepperoni, but I’ve also made buffalo chicken pizza, BBQ chicken pizza, garden veggie, pear and prosciutto, among a few others.
• This isn’t an ingredient, but you can use just about any baking pan you have at home. I make delicious airy chewy pizza on the regular round pizza pans you can find at the grocery store, but I have also used regular baking sheets for years and years. You can use just cornmeal on a pan, parchment paper and then cornmeal (I like the little crunch cornmeal gives), or just parchment paper.

Toppings:

• The crust is a super important part of a high quality pizza. The toppings can also make or break your pizza. Below I’ll share some of our favorite toppings and some tips:
  • Sauce:
    • I don’t want to make my own pizza sauce, so I buy it from the store. I try to get ones that have ingredients I know my body likes (like extra virgin olive oil), and then I spruce them up a bit.
    • Give your sauce a little taste. If it tastes like Spaghetti-o’s, you may want to add some other seasonings. (no offense if that’s anyone’s preferred pizza sauce, it’s just not mine)
    • Typically, I’ll add a generous sprinkle of garlic powder, onion powder, some Italian seasoning, and a pinch or two of cayenne pepper. This gives the sauce the boost it needs, without me making an entire sauce from scratch.
  • Cheese:
    • We don’t get too fancy with our mozzarella. Usually we just buy shredded mozzarella and aim for the whole milk variety. Sometimes I’ll get a log of mozzarella and shred it using my food processor.
    • A good 3 cheese pizza is always a staple, so we layer shredded mozzarella, shredded parmesan, and a sprinkle of feta cheese on top of the sauce. Then, a dash of oregano on top. And of course a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt flakes is a must after it’s baked!
  • Pepperoni:
    • We make our pepperoni pizza by layering, sauce, mozzarella, parmesan, pepperoni, and oregano flakes before baking.
    • After baking, I sprinkle some Maldon sea salt flakes on top (have I convinced you of this yet?)

Recommended kitchen items:

• Stainless steel measuring utensils. The spoons are my favorite, because they fit in spice jars. I also love using stainless steel, instead of plastic.
• Silicone oven mitts. I love using silicone oven mitts, because they totally protect your hands, unlike the fabric ones I’ve used in the past. I use this set daily.
• Glass mixing bowls with lids. I used one of these for mixing the slaw and then storing it in the refrigerator. I love that they had lids to do this more easily.
• Stainless steel mixing bowls. This set is awesome, because it has a non-slip bottom and lids for each bowl.
• Round pizza pan. This is the pan I have, 3 of them actually, and I just got them at my local grocery store. You can get them online or probably at your local grocery store as well.
• Pizza cutter. This is the handheld pizza cutter I use. It has an awesome blade guard and cleans really easily. I love it!

I hope you love this recipe, and would love to hear about how making it went for you! Share with me in the comments below, on Pinterest, or @whitsfoodfit on Instagram.