Freezer sourdough pizza dough
One batch makes twelve dough balls that live in the freezer, so pizza night needs nothing more than a thaw and a stretch. The crust is better than anything you can order.
Needs active starterCollected
Ingredients
| Ingredient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Bread flour | 1.5 kg |
| Water | 975 g |
| Active starter, at peak | 300 g |
| Fine sea salt | 33 g |
| Olive oil | 45 g |
Makes twelve balls of roughly 230 g, each a 25 cm pizza. Halve it all if your freezer is already full.
Making the dough
- Whisk the starter into the water until milky. Add the flour, salt and oil and mix until there are no dry patches.
- Rest 30 minutes, then do 3 sets of stretch and folds, 30 minutes apart.
- Bulk ferment until puffy and risen - 5 to 8 hours at room temperature, depending on your kitchen.
- Divide into 12 pieces of about 230 g and shape each into a tight ball.
- Put each ball in its own lidded container, or space them well apart in a tray.
- Refrigerate overnight, 12 to 24 hours. This is what gives you the blistered, crackly crust.
Freezing and thawing
- After the cold proof, freeze the balls in their containers. Good for 3 months.
- To use: move to the fridge the night before, then take out 2 hours before cooking so the dough is at room temperature.
- Cold dough fights you. Room-temperature dough stretches easily. Do not rush this part.
Shaping and cooking
The pan-then-grill method
No pizza oven, no stone, and a better base than either gives you in a domestic oven.
- Heat the grill as high as it goes, with a shelf near the top.
- Stretch a ball out to about 25 cm with your fingertips, working from the middle outwards and leaving the rim alone. Never use a rolling pin - it flattens the bubbles that make the crust.
- Get an ovenproof frying pan, cast iron for preference, smoking hot on the hob.
- Lay the base in the dry pan. Cook 1 to 2 minutes, until the underside is set and spotted.
- Top it quickly - sauce, mozzarella, whatever else. Go light; a wet pizza steams instead of crisping.
- Slide the whole pan under the grill for 2 to 4 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and the rim is charred in places.
Oven only
Heat a stone or a heavy upturned tray at your oven's maximum for a full 45 minutes. Build the pizza on parchment, slide it on, and bake 6 to 10 minutes. Good, but the pan start is better.
If the base is soggy
Too much topping, or not enough heat underneath at the start. Use less sauce, drain wet ingredients like fresh mozzarella and tinned tomatoes, and make sure the pan is genuinely smoking before the dough goes in.
Collected, not yet baked by me
This one came from a baker I trust and is rewritten here in metric and plain language, but it is still on my own to-bake list. The method is sound; the exact timings are the bit I have not personally checked. Watch the dough rather than the clock, and tell me how it went so I can correct it.