Josey Baker's Pizza Dough Recipe
- 1 tablespoon (or 15 g) sourdough starter
- 1/2 cup (or 120 g) cool water (60 degrees F)
- 3/4 cup (or 105 g) whole wheat flour
- 1 cup (or 240 g) lukewarm water (80 degrees F)
- 2 3/4 cups (or 415 g) bread flour
- 2 teaspoons (or 12 g) sea salt
- 1 1/2 pounds heirloom tomatoes
- 20-25 fresh basil leaves
- 8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese
- 8 ounces fresh burrata cheese
- Good olive oil
- 1 teaspoon Maldon salt
- Parmesan cheese, for garnish (optional)
- Gather your foodstuff and tools.
- Make your sourdough pre-ferment.
- Use starter that is sour smelling in a good way, most likely between 12 and 24 hours old.
- Make your pre-ferment 8 to 12 hours before you want to start mixing your dough likely in the evening before you go to bed or in the morning.
- You want it to be the consistency of thick pancake batter.
- Put the sourdough starter, cool water and whole wheat flour into a big bowl.
- Mix it up real good.
- Cover with a plate or plastic wrap and leave it alone for 8 to 12 hours.
- Mix the lukewarm water, bread flour and sea salt and then mix them into your sourdough ferment.
- This dough will be a little difficult to mix.
- Dont be scared; just proceed as normal, and everything will be fine.
- Once youve mixed everything, cover your bowl with a plate or plastic wrap, and let it sit for 30 minutes to an hour.
- This dough uses a touch more flour than regular bread dough, which leads to a pizza dough thats essentially stronger, making it much easier to shape into a pizza and also yielding a crisper crust.
- Knead the dough.
- After the dough sits for a while, stretch and fold itit will be sweet and gentle yet firm.
- Once youre done, cover the dough, and let it sit for 1/2 hour.
- Knead a few more times.
- After 1/2 hour, stretch and fold the dough another ten times.
- Cover the dough, and leave it alone for another 1/2 hour or so.
- Do this another two times, at 15- to 30-minute intervals.
- Choose your own path.
- Now you get to choose your own adventure for the bulk rise.
- Do what is convenient for you here.
- If you want to shape your dough into balls in 3 to 4 hours, let it sit out somewhere in your kitchen.
- If you want to shape your dough into balls anywhere from 12 to 48 hours later, stick it in the fridge (or just outside if its cool outabout 45 degrees F).
- Shape the dough into balls.
- After the dough has completed its bulk rise, flour your counter and dump out the dough.
- Cut off a piece of dough about 8 oz/225 gitll make a ball thats about 3 in.
- in diameter.
- Use a little flour on your hands to shape it into a ball, and set it on a plate or in a baking pan, seam-side down.
- Do this with all of the dough, placing the balls next to one another.
- If you want to bake pizza within a couple of hours, cover the dough with plastic wrap and leave it on the countertop.
- If you want to bake in 6 to 24 hours, cover the dough with plastic wrap or a plastic bag, leave it at room temperature for an hour, and then put it in the refrigerator.
- If you do this, youll need to let the dough warm up for 30 to 45 minutes when youre ready to make pizza.
- Prepare the toppings.
- Were going simple with this pie: tomato, basil, and cheese (and salt).
- Heirloom tomatoes are delicious and easy to find, but if you have a favorite tomato sauce then be my guestyoull need about 1/4 cup of sauce per pie.
- Preheat the frying pan and broiler.
- Once youre ready to make pizza, put your frying pan on the stovetop, pour in 1 Tbsp of olive oil, and turn that burner on high.
- Turn on the broiler as well, and position a rack as close to the broiler as you can.
- It will take 6 to 8 minutes for both of these to get screaming hot, and youll know the pan is ready when the oil is smoking.
- Just open your windows and get pumped.
- Stretch the dough and toss it in the pan.
- Toss a tablespoons worth of flour on your countertop, and plop a dough ball onto it.
- Sprinkle a little bit more flour on top of the dough, and get to work gently stretching it into a round shape.
- Use your fingertips to press the dough ball into a circle.
- Lift up the dough and gently squeeze it between your fingers and thumb, creating a lip around the outer edge.
- Lay the dough down on the counter, and hit it with a little more flour to prevent sticking.
- Pick up the dough, lay it across the backs of your hands, and gently stretch it out to 10 to 12 in/25 to 31 cm in diameter.
- Once its as big as the frying pan, toss it in there.
- Build the pie.
- Youve got about 3 minutes until the bottom is baked, so theres no need to rush this.
- You can do it however you want, but I like to sprinkle about 1 tsp of Maldon salt on the pizza, mostly on the outer edge of the crust, then spread the tomato slices out to within about 1 1/2 in/4 cm of the outer edge.
- I then artfully toss on 5 or 6 big basil leaves and rip up the burrata into five or six pieces, and toss them on the pie, covering each basil leaf so the leaves dont burn.
- Once youre done, use a fork or spatula to lift up the dough, and check the color of the bottom.
- When it has some dark brown spots, it is ready to go in the broiler.
- Pop it in the broiler.
- Use an oven mitt or towel to place the frying pan in the broiler.
- It will probably take 2 to 3 minutes to get nice and speckled, brown with some specks of black.
- Check it after a minute, and rotate the pan if its browning unevenly.
- Take it out, and finish the pie.
- Be careful taking it out of the broiler, as everything is hot as hell.
- Slide your pizza out of the frying pan and onto a cutting board.
- Drizzle the pie with some extra-virgin olive oil and grate some Parmesan cheese on it.
- Cut it up into slices, let it cool for a minute, and share it with someone you have a crush on.
starter, water, whole wheat flour, water, bread flour, salt, heirloom tomatoes, basil, mozzarella cheese, burrata cheese, olive oil, salt, parmesan cheese
Taken from www.chowhound.com/recipes/josey-baker-homemade-pizza-31114 (may not work)