鉃★笍A match made in 馃崟 Heaven 馃崟
I was going to say if you have followed me for a bit you know that I bake sourdough bread but then I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled until I finally found my one (?) sourdough bread post - yikes! Maybe I should do another bread post...
Anyhow, so along with making my own sourdough starter, which is now two and a half years old - yeah, I know, still a baby, I am always trying out different baking recipes that I could utilize my sourdough in.
One of our standards - BIG surprise is #pizza!! Who doesn't like pizza?! I mean, for real, who does not like pizza?
Pizza has this really bad rep of being junk food but really, it has all nutritional groups in and on it. The problem - IMO - does not lie in the pizza but in the portion i.e. how much of it you eat in one sitting. Because there is no doubt
Careful! 馃崟 pizza is a high-calorie food and YUMMY!!!
Especially, if you make your own crust. And that's what I did.
Sourdough pizza crust 馃崟
And it all starts with the sourdough starter. I mix it with lukewarm water and flour and let it sit for a few hours - if I have the time. If I don't I'll just omit that step. Eventually, it will grow, literally, and look nice and bubbly like below.
Then all you need to do is mix more water, flour, and the bubbly sourdough starter. The mixed dough looks pretty dry and rugged.
Let it sit for about 30 minutes covered in a somewhat warm place. Then get mixing again or, what I like to do, 'slap and fold' it. i.e. take it out of the bowl, slap it onto the counter, grab one end and stretch it up, fold it over, scrap it off the counter and slap it back on it. Rinse and repeat until the dough looks really soft and cohesive. You will see what I mean when you try it. It feels a little like magic.
This dough ball now gets covered and put into an ambient, warm place. During winter I like placing it into the oven with just the light on. Believe it or not, the light is warming up the oven very nicely. Nice enough for the dough to rise.
Every 30 minutes take the dough out and fold it. Well, you don't really have to do that. It is something you do in the making of sourdough bread to give the dough strength and structure but it is not really needed for pizza crust. I guess I'm just doing it out of habit.
And then distribute the dough on your pizza pan or baking sheet. Believe it or not, I do not own a pizza pan - yet. I am usually not a fan of deep dish or thick crust pizza but every now and then I am doing my hubby a solid and making a pizza like this one. That crust was thick!! But look at those cute sourdough bubbles on the side - awwww.
In the oven on the top, it's also forming bubbles - a nice, healthy sourdough. Preheat the oven to about 410/ 205 掳C and put the crust into the oven. What I normally do and I didn't do this time is pierce the dough with a fork, massage some olive oil and minced garlic into it, and then bake it. This time I simply baked it. And look at how the dow rose!! Looking quite funny :)
Toppings!
What is a pizza without toppings?! Naked. It can actually be pretty good just with the olive oil garlic mix I mentioned above. Seriously, as a side for a salad? Not bad. But, of course, this time we had pizza with all the trimmings ahem, toppings on it.
From home-made tomato sauce to cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, onions, garlic, red chili peppers (homegrown), olives, soppressata pepperoni to five different kinds of cheese, parmesan, sharp cheddar, mozzarella, goat cheese, and blue cheese.
Super Deluxe Pizza in da-house!!
In all fairness, it was almost pizza overload but - as I said every now and then we'll go overboard like this.
And here is the end result of the deliciously and overly topped homemade pizza. It took only one little piece to be stuffed (and over any calorie limit) - LOL.
Have a great rest of your day!
Cheers,
(Ocean)Bee
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