Easy Sourdough Pizza Recipe - An Italian in my Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

How much sourdough starter to use for pizza dough? ›

The amount of sourdough starter you need to make pizza dough can vary based on the flour used and the fermentation schedule. Typically, I like to have between 10 to 20% sourdough starter in my pizza dough.

Although not all Neapolitan pizza is made from sourdough, there's no reason it can't be. In fact, sourdough starter is mentioned in the official Neapolitan pizza guide (AVPN) as one of the ways to prove pizza.

The main difference is that pizza dough is often made with a higher protein flour (bread flour is perfect). Bread dough can also be made with bread flour (of course) but some types of bread dough are better made with a lower protein flour like all purpose flour.

Simple Sourdough Pizza Crust: The details

You absolutely can use bread flour or tipo 00 flour (read more about tipo 00 flour here) if you can get your hands on either. If you have been having a hard time finding flour, Baker's Authority is a great option — great prices, too, even with shipping tacked on. 75% hydration.

In this recipe I used 00 flour for the starter as this is generally the best for Neapolitan style pizza. Strong white bread flour is a good substitute though. You can also experiment with adding some wholemeal/rye flour to your starter (eg 25%-50%).

The sourdough starter comes from the fermentation that takes place by combining water and flour, but it takes a long time. To reduce the time considerably, it is possible to prepare a starter, adding ripe fruit, yogurt or honey to these two ingredients.

Born in Napoli, la pizza Napoletana is one of the most famous types of Italian pizza. Protected by a Traditional Specialty Guaranteed (TSG) certification, this style must be made in a very particular way. The dough is comprised of wheat flour, yeast, salt, and water and is left to rise for up to 24 hours.

The most common issue is not kneading enough between rises. The yeast cannot float through the dough, so it has to just eat the flour near it. If it exhausts that supply, it's stuck. Kneading the dough a bit - and it doesn't take much - puts the yeast and bacteria back in touch with fresh food.

Why is my sourdough pizza crust chewy? Using high-protein white flour (13-14% protein) in your sourdough pizza dough can lead to a chewier pizza.

Why is Italian pizza dough so good? ›

Because of the extreme fineness of the Italian 00 flour, it doesn't require as much water to begin kneading. And because of the decent amount of protein it doesn't take long to create the gluten structure required for that characteristic Italian crust.

I've seen many people saying the sourdough version is more superior in terms of texture, but maybe if you find the sourness too strong, you'll stick to the regular dough.

Focaccia is an oven-baked flatbread with a similar texture to pizza dough. It's believed that the Romans invented this style of bread – but they cooked theirs on the hearth, which produces a far crispier version than modern-day offerings.

I keep 1 ounce of starter and feed it with 1 ounce of flour and 1 ounce of water because I rarely need a massive amount of starter on hand, but various other sourdough luminaries advise different amounts. If you don't have a scale, go for 1/4 cup starter to 1/2 cup of flour to 1/4 cup water.

There is no single best ratio, but I've found a ratio of 1:5:5 fed twice daily at 12-hour intervals to produce a sourdough starter that's strong and healthy. This ratio corresponds to 20% ripe starter carryover, 100% water, and 100% flour (a mix of whole grain rye and white flour) at each feeding.

How much of my starter should I use for a sourdough loaf? As a general rule, I like to use a 20% innoculation of active sourdough, at 100% hydration. This means that my sourdough has equal weights of flour and water, and for a dough containung 1000 grams of flour for two loaves, I will use 200 grams of starter.

So, a sourdough feeding ratio is the relative amount (referring to weight) of old sourdough compared to fresh flour and water. Typical feeding ratios are 1:2:2 or 1:3:3 (old sourdough: fresh flour: water). However, even extreme ratios like 1:50:50 would still work.