Happy National Pizza Day! 🍕

Happy National Pizza Day! 🍕

If you're looking for a delicious and convenient way to celebrate National Pizza Day, look no further than this simple recipe from Martha Levie at Abigail's Oven. Her delicious sourdough pizza crust recipe is the perfect way to enjoy homemade pizza. 

Sourdough pizza has become increasingly popular in recent years, due to its unique taste and texture. The fermentation process produces a slightly tangy and chewy crust, and gives the pizza a unique flavor and structure that can't be replicated with traditional pizza dough.

In addition, the long cold fermentation of the dough improves the bioavailability of certain vitamins and minerals found in flour, all while making it more digestible for those you may be a bit gluten intolerant. 

And at Abigail's Oven, since we focus on just "3 Perfect Ingredients;" flour, water and salt, that is all that goes into this recipe. But we suggest using a combination of high-quality flour, spring or pure filtered water, real salt, and natural sourdough starter to make the dough.

This combination of ingredients creates a crust that is both crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. It is likely to become your weekly go to recipe for pizza night!

History of Pizza

"Though flatbreads with toppings were consumed by ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks, the modern birthplace of the pizza is southwestern Italy’s Campania region, home to Naples… [where] Neapolitans required inexpensive food that could be consumed quickly. Pizza… fulfilled this need.

"These early pizzas featured tasty toppings such as tomatoes, cheese, oil, anchovies, and garlic. More well off Italian authors judged Naples’ innovation, often calling their eating habits disgusting."

As legend records, King Umberto the First and his Queen Margherita visited Naples in 1889. In their travels they had become "bored with their steady diet of French cuisine and asked for an assortment of pizzas from the city’s Pizzeria Brandi, founded in 1760.

"The variety the queen enjoyed the most was called pizza mozzarella, a pie topped with the soft white cheese, red tomatoes, and green basil — much resembling the Italian flag. Since then, this particular choice of toppings has been dubbed the Margherita pizza."—National Day

 

SOURDOUGH PIZZA CRUST RECIPE

Prep time: 15 minutes
Proof Time: 6–8 hours
Bake time: 20 mins
Servings: 4–8 servings
Yield: two 12-inch pizza crusts

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 cup (240g) sourdough starter
  • ½ cup (113g) water
  • 2½ cups (300g)  00 Pizzeria Flour or All-Purpose Flour
    Maurizio Leo at The Perfect Loaf suggests using 00 which "indicates it’s milled incredibly fine (it truly feels like light powder). You can’t go wrong with this flour—it performs exceptionally well and makes pizza with a thin, delicate crust that is strong enough to hang onto whatever toppings you throw at it."
  • 1 tsp salt
  • (OPTIONAL: olive oil to prevent sticking as needed.)

DIRECTIONS

  1. Stir your mature starter down, then measure 1 cup (240g) into a mixing bowl. (Remember to feed the starter for the next time.)
  2. Add the listed amounts of flour, water, and salt.
  3. Mix and knead the dough for about 7 minutes by hand (or in in a stand-mixer with the dough hook attached, until the dough comes clean from the sides of the bowl).
  4. Place the dough in an oiled container with a lid to rest, but after 30 minutes give it a set stretch and folds and every 30-minutes for three sets total.
  5. Next, give the dough give the dough a cold bulk fermentation overnight if possible, but at least 8 hours, in the fridge. 
  6. Prior to baking, shape the cold dough into two tight balls (300g each) and allow them to proof at room temperature for another 5–6 hours covered.
  7. Towards the end of proofing, preheat your oven to 450°F and press each half into two flattened disks on parchment paper cut to size. However, as you press be sure to not degass the rim of the dough which will be your outer edge
  8. At this point you need to switch the oven to broil (high) for a few minutes as you top the pizza with your sauce of choice.
  9. Lower the oven temperature back down to the bake setting at 425°F/220°C, immediately place the sauced pizza in the bottom third of the oven.
  10. Bake this for about 10 minutes get get the crust started to bake without other heavy toppings.
  11. After 10 minutes, pull the pie from the oven and get creative with a variety of traditional and creative toppings, including pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, spinach, and of course, cheese. Or you might might go all out with just vegetarian toppings for the vegans in your group.

 

Pan Baked Pizza

Pan Baked Pizza

  1. If using pans, coat two 12″ round pizza pans with olive oil, brushing to coat the bottom.
  2. King Arthur explains, “place the dough in the pans, cover, and let rest for 15 minutes. After this rest, gently press the dough toward the edges of the pans. If it starts to shrink back, cover it and let it rest for 15 minutes before continuing.
  3. “Sauce and top as you like, but don’t add cheese yet. Bake thin-crust pizzas for 5 minutes before removing them from the oven and adding cheese. For thick-crust pizza, bake for 10 minutes before removing it from the oven and adding cheese. Return to the oven and bake for 5 to 7 more minutes, until the cheese is melted.”
  4. You can store leftover pizza covered in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

 Stone Baked Pizza

Stone Baked Pizza
  1. Breadtopia explains that you, “lay your pizza dough on a piece of parchment paper or floured/corn-mealed pizza peel. Stretch and adjust the dough a little more, aiming to position one edge of the pizza all the way at the front edge of the peel if that is what you’re using. When you insert the peel into the oven, the front edge of the dough will 'catch' on the hot stone, making it easier to slide the peel out from under the pizza.
  2. “Now top your pizza dough to your liking and put it in the oven. If you leave it on the peel for more than a few minutes, it may begin to stick to the peel, so keep your assembly line moving or use parchment paper.
  3. “For a pizza stone or steel, bake for 7 minutes, then switch to broil for 1 minute more. Keep the oven on broil for an additional minute before you load the next pizza. This helps reheat the stone before you switch back to bake mode…
  4. “Remove the pizza from the oven with a peel, spatula, or even by tugging on a corner of the parchment paper.
  5. “Put the pizza on a rack if not eating right away (this keeps the bottom crispy), or on a plate or a steel/aluminum sheet to serve.”

So, go ahead and treat yourself to a slice of delicious sourdough pizza this National Pizza Day! 🍕

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