Room Temperature approx. 24 hrs Fermented Neapolitan Style Sourdough Pizza.

You've been asking me a lot to share a sourdough pizza recipe which doesn't require Cold Fermentation (CT) and it's done in 24hrs. So here is my recipe. This pizza has a bit smaller CORNICIONE, it tastes a bit different than long-fermented CT sourdough pizza, but it is very, very tasty as well! So let's jump straight into the recipe!

I tested this recipe with different flours (0, 00, strong bread flour) and I always got very nice results. Just make sure to use a flour with protein content above 11.5%, ideally organic and localy produced. Flours high in protein handle water much easier so you can crank up the hydration and you can develop much more gluten formation. This way the dough becomes super elastic & easy to stretch.

Talking about organic... I came across this amazing flour from WILDFARMED. Love their concept and story! Wildfarmed flour fixes the planet, because they farm differently. By putting soil health first, and paying farmers properly, they are able to grow tasty, highly nutritious food, in a way that heals the planet. All of their products are grown without the use of chemicals, in a system that prioritises soil health, increasing soil biodiversity, drawing carbon from the atmosphere and producing nutrient dense food. Their pasture cropping method originally developed by Andy and now being adapted and refined by the growers in their community, allows arable crops to be grown alongside perennial plants.

'If we can get grasses, trees, perennial plants of all kinds back into the “fields of single crops” that cover two thirds of the country, we can make agriculture a solution to our biodiversity and climate crises rather than a contributor. That’s our mission.'

For this recipe I’m using AUTOLYSE which means mixing only flour and water first in the recipe. To kick start the gluten development process after the rest, we add other ingredients (levain and sea salt).

INGREDIENTS:

---

RENE'S LEVAIN BUILD (approx. 8 hours before)

- 10g Starter

- 20g Water

- 20g Organic high protein white bread flour

RENE'S FINAL DOUGH MIX:

- 500g White Flour

- 311g Water (62%)

- 40g Levain (8%)

- 13g Sea Salt (2.6%)

TOOLS & EQUIPMENT:

---

- Bowls

- Scale

- Scraper

- Pizza Tray

- Pizza Spatula

- Oven

My starter is 100% hydration so this pizza dough is 64% hydration in total.

THE PROCESS:

---

First, add the water into your plastic container. Then, slowly add and mix all the flour in. After they are mixed together and there is no dry flour left in your mixture, cover the container and put it aside for 30 minutes. We will kick start the gluten development and this process is called AUTOLYSE.

After 30 minutes you will see that the dough is smoother and it has a bit of strength already. It's not easily tearing apart.

Now is the time to add our Leaven and sea salt. Mix with your hands and incorporate the starter and salt into the dough… It will feel that this is impossible to do but in some time you will see that the starter is not sticking anymore to your hands and it's nicely mixed and paired with the dough.

Next, add the sea salt and mix well again. Don’t go crazy with the kneading here. After around 5-10 minutes we will cover it and start with our bulk fermentation with Stretch & Folds., The dough temperature after mixing and during the S&F should be around 24-26ºC. Put it aside for 40 minutes.

We will do 4x S&F every 40minutes. You can change the timings depending on your Room Temperature. After those 40 minutes, wet your hands and you are ready for your first stretch and fold. We will use the stretch and fold technique to gently strengthen the gluten and incorporate air into the pizza dough. You need to do at least 4 stretches and folds around the dough. After every stretch and fold make sure to make a nice ball with a smooth surface. Cover and come back after 40 minutes.

What’s stretch and fold? How to do them? If you wanna learn more in-depth about the process, check my 'Mastering Sourdough Pizza' Course.

You are going to repeat this process 4 times. After every S&F don't forget to cover the dough! When you finish with the 4th stretch and fold, cover the dough and leave it to rest for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, reshape it into a smooth ball and now you can start with bulk RT fermentation. I usually leave it for 10 hours. When this bulk fermentation is complete, take it out of the container, divide your dough into 4 pieces and shape each one of them into a nice smooth ball (you should get 3x 260g pizza balls and one small pita bread).

Then, transfer the dough balls into a plastic tray, I usually don’t sprinkle the tray with the flour, because I don’t want to reduce hydration and I will add semolina flour when I will take them out of the tray while stretching. Now cover the tray and leave them on the counter at room temperature (18-22ºC) for another 12-18 hours. This is what is called Room Temperature (RT) Fermentation.

After that, when RT fermentation is over, you are ready to stretch the pizza balls and baking your pizzas! Remember that fermentation is the process that will make our dough easy to digest and will give it an amazing flavour which will make your pizza taste very special and unique!

Thanks for reading and watching guys, if you have any questions DM me via instagram or just drop your comments below.