Pizza dough with sourdough

• 3 hours to activate the sourdough starter • 1 day to leaven • Serves 4

Sourdough makes it better

A little while ago I posted a pizza I’d made with sourdough, and promised to report back with the details on the process once I’d optimized it.

To clarify, when I say “pizza”, I’m talking Italian–style pizzas: thin-crispy-chewy-airy crust and a few carefully chosen toppings, baked in a wood-fired oven so they come out minutes later, smoking hot and delicious.
What makes a Italian-style pizza? First off, the dough is lean, meaning that it’s just flour, water, salt, and yeast (or in this case, sourdough) – no fat or oil. I’ve made it with yeast before as well, so I’ve described it here as a variation because I know not everyone has a sourdough culture living in the back of their fridge, ha-ha.
I think we’re ready to make pizza dough!

Here are ingredients for a 4-serving recipe (4 pizzas):

500 g flour 00
150 g fresh sourdough starter
20 g barley malt
250 ml water (better if sparkling)
10 g salt

1. The first thing to be done is to activate the sourdough. To prepare 150 g of fresh, active sourdough, you need 75 g of mature starter, 75 g of extra flour, 38 g of water. Mix the sourdough with water and flour until you obtain an homogeneous dough. Place it in a clean jar,  close it hermetically, and wait for it to mature for about 3 hours
2. Once the sourdough is active and full of bubbles, pour the water into a large bowl, keeping aside few spoons. Mix in the fresh sourdough starter, and stir well until it melts in the water
3. Add the flour and mix until uniformly moist. Knead if necessary
4. Add salt and barley malt to the water you kept aside. Mix well and add it to the dough. Knead again
5. Loosely cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for 12 hours at room temperature
6. After this time has passed, divide the dough into 4 balls and refrigerate them, loosely covered, for other 12 hours before using
7. When you are ready to bake the pizzas, take the dough out of the fridge, leaving at least 1 hour and half for it to warm up and get pliable
8. Generously dust the counter with semolina flour. Make the pizzas one at a time. Dip your hands in flour and lift a ball of dough. Very gently lay the dough across your fists and carefully stretch it by bouncing the dough in a circular motion on your hands, carefully giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss
9. When the dough is stretched out to your satisfaction (about 25 cm in diameter), lay it on the baking tray covered by baking paper
10. You are all set to season your pizzas! 

Nutrition Facts are detailed in the table below. Data is provided per serving.