I had two bowls of sourdough starter taking up space in my fridge, plus it is Friday! So what do I decide to make? Sourdough pizza crust using one bowl of sourdough starter!
Number one, I probably will not do this again when my oldest son has band practice (he plays the flute). It was at the wrong time of afternoon and I had to put off getting the crust into the pans because of it. Dinner ended up being at 6:30! That’s a little too late for us.
Number two, I don’t know why, but my family ate this crust up. There were no leftovers! The last time I made this crust there were leftovers.
I used the same recipe I did the last time: King Arthur Flour Sourdough Pizza Crust.
The things I changed:
- I used my own Pizza Dough seasoning.
- I doubled the recipe.
Pizza Dough seasoning
Pizza Dough Seasoning
Note: I used Penzey’s spices.
2 tsp grated Parmesan cheese
2 tsp Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle
1/4 Tbsp roasted garlic seasoning
1/4 Tbsp toasted granulated onion
1/4 Tbsp Tuscan Sunset
This is my happy sourdough starter. I had an extra bowl of it in the fridge for when I wanted to make pizza crust again. I have to double the recipe for the pizza crust to feed all of us and that takes 2 cups of starter. If I used my main starter for this, I would have no starter left!
Because of the larger amount of pizza dough, I wasn’t able to use my KitchenAid mixer to knead the dough for me. I ended up kneading the dough by hand for about 15 minutes. I’m still not sure that was long enough either! It probably could have used another 5-10 minutes. I got a good arm workout today.
My pizza dough proofed for a VERY long time. Probably too long! I just was not able to get the dough into the pan when I wanted to. I started the dough around 10 and had it in the bowl to rise by about 11. I was going to try and get the dough into the pan around 2:45 to 3 but that didn’t work out (band practice was at 2:15). I had to wait until almost 4 to prepare the pans.
One of the pans of pizza dough ready to be baked. I pre-baked the crust for 8 minutes at 450 degrees F after brushing it with olive oil.
After the pre-bake, I put the toppings on: pizza sauce, bacon, salami, provolone, mozzarella, and purple kale. Yes, kale! The pizza needed some green (and some purple too!) and that was all the green I had in the fridge that would work.
My suspicions on why these pizzas disappeared and my last ones didn’t:
- Everything tastes better with bacon. This is a fact.
- The kale? No, that can’t be it.
- The pizza dough seasoning?
I think I might have gone overboard with the garlic. The roasted garlic seasoning I used is VERY strong. I probably could have used half what I did.
The crust didn’t rise in the pans as much as I would have liked, but that’s okay. Since there were no leftovers, I guess the crust was good!
I was REALLY surprised that there were no complaints about the kale. At least, no complaints that I heard. My youngest son did ask “what are these black things?” though. He did eat it even after picking it off. I actually liked the kale on the pizza. It provided some leafy crispiness.
My pizza must always have bacon on it from now on. Always.
-Lynn
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I love the look of that bowl of proofed dough. It’s so pretty that you just want to dive in with your hands and shape it.
It’s amazing the things people will eat when you stick them on top of a pizza. I liked your idea of adding sauteed kale a lot. It’s pretty sturdy to start with so I would have thought that it would hold up better especially on a prebaked crust.
I love my cheap metal tin baking sheets. They hold up to high heat really well so the whole pizza gets cooked in 15 min or less and browns nicely on the underside as well. I like a crispy crust.
I didn’t have to saute the kale 🙂 I just gave the leaf a quick rinse and tore it up into pieces with my hands and put it on top of the pizzas. If I’d been thinking ahead, I would have brushed them with olive oil, to make them less of a dry crispy. It was almost like eating kale chips on our pizza, except I don’t actually like kale chips! lol Or maybe I do now. I might have to give kale chips a try again.
I don’t know why I got the impression that you had sauteed the kale. I wonder whether that would have helped as the result would have been bulkier (clumps of shredded kale) and moister … so it wouldn’t have dried out as much.
I tried putting whole basil leaves on a pizza once and got the same dry shriveled result. Even putting caramelized onions on a pizza before baking ends up with dry and slightly burnt onions. You’ve got to wait til the last 5 or so minutes.
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