Pizza At Home — Lesley W Graham

With limited pizza options in the country, Sam started experimenting with making pizza at home and when I tell you he cracked the code, I AM SERIOUS! I asked if he would share all of his tips and tricks and he generously did. Hope you guys enjoy making your own pizza at home. - Lesley

We've been making sourdough bread for a couple year now, and we wanted to branch out into other sourdough baked goods. We've had great success with sourdough biscuits as well as sourdough cinnamon rolls so naturally the next step was pizza. My first attempt at sourdough pizza actually worked, if you like 5lb slices of pizza (missed the memo on dividing the dough). Attempts 2, 3, and 4 were all equally disastrous, and at this point, I was done!

After almost a year, I started to get the urge to try again. I spent one Sunday afternoon taking in all the youtube content I could handle, but nothing really made a difference. Everyone likes to talk about hydration levels and protein percentages, and while I know all that stuff matters, just tell me what to do....I don't need to know why! Then I stumbled on Feng Chen's (@leopardcrust) sourdough pizza video. The way she explained how to build up your dough just clicked so we gave it another try. I'm so glad we did!

The pizza ended up being perfectly thin but not floppy. Crispy and chewy at the same time. Homemade pizza heaven! So I rewatched Feng's video and took down the instructions, and can't wait to share them with you.

For the dough:

Start your levain in the morning around 9ish. Use a 1 to 1 to 1 mix of flour : filtered water : starter. I use 50g of each. I put a rubber band around my jar of levain so I can tell how much it has risen.
Autolyse (fancy sourdough word for hydrate) your flour: 400g 00 pizza flour, 212g bread flour, 428g filtered water (use a kitchen scale). Mix well, cover, and let rest for 3-5 hours.
One your levain has doubled in size add 30g of levain to autolysed flour and mix well. Once your dough is elasticy and pulls easily from the bowl, add 18g salt. Continue mixing dough until it forms a smooth surface and salt is totally incorporated.
Now we begin our bulk ferment. Bulk ferment (5-7 hours) Optional and helpful - take a a small pinch off of your dough and put it in a very small mason jar. Wrap a rubber band around the level of the dough so you can tell how much it rises. Cover your dough with plastic wrap and place it in a relatively warm environment. We use the laundry room while the dryer is running or with a small space heater. Every hour for the first 3 hours perform a stretch and fold on the dough. You can leave it alone for the final 2-4 hours
After the dough has risen about 10%, divide the dough into 270g balls (you should be able to get 3 full size balls and 1 smaller). Unless you are using the dough immediately, place the dough lightly oiled separate containers and store for 24-48 hours in the fridge.

PIZZA DAY!

Reball the dough inside the containers and place in a warmish location for 4-6 hours, or until the dough has doubled and is nice and bubbly.

The Cook

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees for at least an hour before you plan to cook. Make sure you preheat your pizza pan as well. We use a cast iron pizza pan and it works great, but we hear pizza stones are where it's at. There's no getting around it, you're going to need a couple extra cooking tools for your pizza. You'll need a pizza peel for building your pizza and getting it into the oven and a separate pizza peel for getting it out of the oven .

Forming the pizza

While your oven is still pre-heating, get your ingredients ready. This is where your creativity can shine, but for this post we'll go over our favorite 2 pizzas, pepperoni and our sweet hot margherita.
Liberally spread semolina flour on your countertop and pizza peel. Put your dough directly on the semolina flour and flip so that all sides are coated. From the center of the dough stretch outwards so that you start to form a circle. I use my knuckles in the center of the dough and let gravity pull the dough down, while I rotate the dough around my hand. It really helps if you watch a video on this part.
Once your dough is spread thin. (try not to rip it) and it's about 8-10" in diameter, place it on your pizza peel. Continue to stretch the dough until it takes up almost all the space on the peel, and make sure you leave the edges a little thicker so your crust rises.

For the Pepperoni:

Put 2-3 Tbsp of pizza sauce in the center of your dough and spread it in a spiral motion to the edge of the dough. You really only want a thin covering here, and you should be able to see the dough in some places.
Season lightly with Kinder's The Blend
Spread a 50/50 mix of shredded provolone and mozzarella on the pizza. As tempting as it can be, don't over-cheese the pizza!
Spread plenty of pepperonis all over the dough.
Carefully transfer your pizza from the peel to the pizza pan and set a timer for 5 minutes.

At the 5 minute mark, set your over to broil and restart your timer for 5 minutes (so you don't burn it to a crisp)

At about 2 1/2 minutes I keep an eye on the pizza. As soon as it starts getting burn marks on the crust, it's ready to come out.

Take your other pizza peel (the one not used for making the pizza), remove the pizza from the oven, and place it onto a cooling rack.

Don't forget to switch your oven back to 500 degrees.

Give the pizza a few minutes to cool, and enjoy!

For the Hot Honey Basil:

Put 2-3 Tbsp of pizza sauce in the center of your dough and spread it in a spiral motion to the edge of the dough. You really only want a thin covering here, and you should be able to see the dough in some places.
Season lightly with Kinder's The Blend
Squeeze a light coating of honey on top of the pizza sauce
Sprinkle red pepper flakes on top
Put several mozzarella slices on the pizza and fill in the gaps with fresh basil. Give the pizza a quick spray with olive oil so the basil doesn't burn

Carefully transfer your pizza from the peel to the pizza pan and set a timer for 5 minutes.

At the 5 minute mark, set your over to broil and restart your timer for 5 minutes (so you don't burn it to a crisp)

At about 2 1/2 minutes I keep an eye on the pizza. As soon as it starts getting burn marks on the crust, it's ready to come out.

Take your other pizza peel (the one not used for making the pizza), remove the pizza from the oven, and place it onto a cooling rack.

Don't forget to switch your oven back to 500 degrees.

Give the pizza a few minutes to cool, and enjoy! - Sam