Pizza for lunch

Yesterday I was thinking about what to do for lunch today and I asked Dave, do you want bread or pizza? Can you guess what he said?

Starting with the Starter

Really it was all about the starter. I had fed it, but when I did that I wasn’t really thinking about baking. Sometimes if I do it too late, then it doesn’t do its thing in time. However, my rye sourdough starter went off. I couldn’t believe how quickly it did.

I believe the technical term for it is that it is very active. Or some such thing. Really, who cares, it just doubled in size so quickly. That meant I could use it for something. This is where Dave comes in, my husband.

“So Dave, I only have enough starter to do one thing, what do you want? I can do a loaf of bread for lunch tomorrow or I can do some pizza dough.” Dave said, “Pizza”. So pizza it was.

Making pizza dough

Making my own pizza dough is something I have done in the past, but not for a long time. I found a recipe which was easy and I did do it again, but after using sourdough for so many things, come on, you knew I would have to try it for this as well.

I went hunting for a sourdough pizza recipe and I found one. You can find the recipe at Alexandra Cooks, click here. It is a very wet dough, but it is so good. I don’t think I could go back to using the other recipe now.

It does use 100 grams of starter, so it did almost wipe out my rye starter, but thankfully there was enough left.

There is no doubt that anything sourdough means you need lots of time. I made the dough last night and got it ready for the bulk rise. That happened overnight. At this time of the year I can do that overnight with it sitting on the bench. As we get closer to summer that will have to change.

The second rise

This was done this morning. Once I woke up I could see the dough was ready. When we’ve had a cold night I have to put it into some warm water to get it going, but not this morning.

Once the bulk rise is done I turned it out onto a board and divided it up. The dough will make four pizzas.

Then I divide and roll. I turn or roll each piece to make a ball and then chuck each one into a small ceramic bowl that has been oiled. These bowls have been perfect for this.

The recipe has all these things you are meant to do, but to be honest, I don’t pay a lot of attention to it. If there is one thing I’ve learned about making sourdough for anything, it isn’t as hard as people make out. It is a very forgiving dough.

So I let it rest there on the bench for, I don’t know half an hour or a couple of hours. I leave out the ones I want to use and put the others in the fridge.

Making pizza

So before I really start I turn my oven up as high as it will go. I also have a pizza stone that I put in there as well close to the top of the oven. You know that theory heat rises to the top, so that, in theory, should be the hottest place in your oven.

My oven has a pizza setting and it says it goes up to 260 degrees C, but if I push it over that and just turn it all the way up my digital thermometer says it goes to 330, well the pizza stone does. That is good for pizza I think.

The toppings

We are vegetarians, so no meat on our pizzas, but we do love a combination of onions, muchrooms, capsicums and olives.

There they are all cut up and ready to go.

The dough

I play with the dough a bit on my hands to make it rounder and then put it onto some baking paper that has some flour sprinkled on it.

I usually pour over some olive oil and then use fingers and hands to spread it out the size I want. Thin crust on the bottom, but thick around the edges.

Putting it together

So what I do is tomato sauce, then some oregano, basil and chilli flakes. Cover it with cheese then put the toppings from above on top. I do a thin layer of cheese, just in case and sprinkle with a little olive oil.

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Bake it

Once the oven is ready I put it in there. I set the timer for 8 minutes, however after two I get out the pizza thingy to lift it off the paper and remove it so the pizza is sitting directly on the stone.

When it is just about done I turn on the grill in the oven to cook the top for a couple of minutes.

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Ready to eat for lunch

Once it comes out it is cut up, and transferred to a plate to eat.

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It is so good and we love them so much. Sourdough makes such good pizzas. I couldn’t imagine going back to using commercial yeast now. Yum.

I hope this post was okay, I want to share with you the stuff I’ve been doing, but haven’t really been sure if anyone wants to hear about it. We are in week 4 of our stage 4 lockdown and doing this sort of thing is pretty much my life.

The photos were taken with my phone.

If you try this let me know.

Pizza for lunch