A week ago, I posted about my new sourdough starter that I grew from just water and flour. I grew the starter, day by day, over the course of a week, adding more flour and water in morning and evening for seven days. Sunday evening, I used some starter to begin a batch of sourdough bread, using the recipe on this page.
To make sourdough bread without any yeast whatsoever, I needed to begin the dough the day before I wanted to bake. By Monday morning, the sponge was ready to add sugar, salt, and additional flour. I turned half of the dough into a loaf of bread and used the other half to make pizza crust.
If you know sourdough, then you can imagine the cheesy taste it has. As a pizza crust, this was amazing. I will make sourdough pizza crust even after I have a lot of yeast again. The crust is tangy, crispy, and chewy.
The one major difference between making sourdough pizza crust and yeast-raised pizza crust is time. The sponge for the dough needs to sit overnight. Then the next day, after the rest of the ingredients are mixed in and the dough is kneaded, it needs to rise for a couple of hours. And finally, after the dough has been pressed into a circle on a greased baking sheet, it needs to rise for an hour to hour and a half before spreading with sauce, adding toppings, and baking. As the crust does not rise much at all once in the oven, a good period for rising before baking is necessary with a sourdough.
Like I said, I would make this even if I had lots of yeast to spare.
