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William's avatar

We make pizza every week at our house. Here's the recipe I've been using for the past few months.

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-pizza-crust-recipe

It makes an amazing crust. Takes some effort, but the results are worth it.

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

I did a poolish, not a sourdough starter. I didn't want the responsibility of keeping the sourdough alive!

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William's avatar

And it looks great! I'll need to give it a try. I've found sourdough to be pretty resilient when stored in the fridge. We feed it once a week, and that's about it for effort. If it starts to get too much hootch in between feedings, we'll refresh it over the course of a week. We've gone as long as 2 weeks between feedings.

For the impatient, here's my tried-and-true no-wait recipe:

Mix together in a big bowl

* 1 cup whole wheat flour (red preferred)

* 2 cups white all-purpose flour

* a dash of granulated garlic.

Mix in smaller bowl

* 1 cup of warm water (115F)

* 1 tsp dry yeast

* 1/2 tsp of sugar (white is ok. coconut sugar adds a bit more complex flavor)

let the wet mixture proof for 15 min. I usually start cooking the sausage and/or wilted spinach w/ garlic at this point.

Once the yeast is confirmed active, add

* 1/8 cup olive oil to the dry mix

and then slowly add the wet mix to the dry while stirring with a fork. Then kneed until smooth.

I usually let it rest for 10-15 min afterwards, when prepping the other fixings.

Once everything is ready, roll it out, top it and cook at 450F for 7-10 min.

I've made this successfully in UT and CO, so it should work in LV as well. :-)

When kneading, the dough should be smooth and silky. And maybe this is where the art comes in. too dry? add a spoonful of water. Too wet? add a dash more flour.

I've never had it fail as a calzone crust.

I've found the trick to good pizza crust (and breads in general) is to mix flours. You can then play with the ratio from week to week, til you find something you like. The artful part is to have the dough wet and soft enough to get a good rise, but not so sticky that it's hard to handle.

Bon appetit!

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John Marcoux's avatar

Here's a few I have used while trying to make Chicago style crust here in Charleston, SC,

Pizzeria Uno dough (lots of tips on tomatoes, etc.)(don't be scared off by the website title):

https://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Miscellaneous/Recipes/unos_pizza.htm

Labriola pizza dough:

https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/home-and-family/recipes/labriola-deep-dish-pizza

Zachary's Pizza dough (via Epicurious):

https://www.epicurious.com/archive/blogs/editor/2008/03/secrets-of-zach.html

Malnati's:

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chicago-style-pizza-recipe-1913642#!

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

That Chicago style crust is going to be attempted.

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Tom Eckert's avatar

Looks delicious! If you have to practice patience, cooking great food is a most worthy pursuit!

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Rosie's avatar

I don’t have a separate pizza oven but I love making pizzas from scratch and have used recipes where ‘poolish’ is the start. It’s both art and science! Have fun!

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

I have a pizza stone, and I suppose my oven gets hot enough but I wanted to goof around with a pizza oven. My friend who is a chef has a Gozney Dome. Todd has a small Ooni. I have done shellfish and other things in it too.

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Illinois Entrepreneur's avatar

Every detail matters. From the temperature of the water used in the dough (2 degrees will make a difference) to ensuring that the dough is "alive" (and well) to doing a double rise. The double rise is the key to a truly terrific dough.

There is some "art" to it, but I disagree in that it is mostly science -- if you want it to be consistently good.

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

True that.

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ETat's avatar

It's a yeast dough - not an easy one to master. Watching my grandma make it for various pies/pirozhki it looked so easy until I started making it myself, and even with her recipes I don't get the same results every time. A lot depends of quality/ age of the yeast, on flour, on temp and hrs of "resting" the dough - and most likely, on how to talk to it (my grandma did...)

That said, maybe if you get your store-made dough to rest in a warm place, then get it rise couple of times, it'd taste better? Dunno.

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

I got some Caputo yeast. My first attempt used old yeast.....the dough was like an 80 year old that misplaced his Viagra.

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ETat's avatar

My mom used to bring it to life (yeast, not an octogenarian with memory lapses) by carefully feeding it sugar and a bit of milk...

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Kenton Krohlow's avatar

Nice to hear you're enjoying life. Altitude makes a big difference re dough, along w/many other things. Baking is an art, not a science.

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

True on altitude, and Nevada is so dry I added just a bit more water to this one.

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Garrett's avatar

Two sites: Wood Fired Oven Chef and Mile Zero Kitchen. Both have great dough recipes. Would especially recommend you try Mile Zero for the Bonci/Roman style dough.

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

That Bonci looks cool but I don't think the pan will fit in the size oven I have. I haven't looked for a smaller Roman style pan. I also need to get a better metal peel.

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BillD's avatar

Serious Eats has some good dough recipes. This is my favorite for pan pizza. Easy and forgiving. https://www.seriouseats.com/foolproof-pan-pizza-recipe

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Rosie's avatar

Yeah, the pizza stone is imperative. Even without a dedicated pizza oven I hosted a pizza party for 6-8 people last year. I made the dough and provided a huge array of toppings for each to make their own personal pie. It was fun. A friend in Vancouver BC, where I lived for 25 years before coming back to the US 5 years ago had a big fancy pizza oven built on his patio. Now he can’t move! 🤣

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Mike Zimmerman's avatar

Looks good. What's your delivery charge?

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Jeffrey Carter's avatar

$100k to you but you can afford it. Mere bag of shells for a commodity broker. Make DRN pay for it.

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