Ferment your dough for a pizza that’s better tasting and easier to digest
by Anna Potvin (@annapotvin, mamawarrior.com) // Photography by Roger Klein
I finally tried cold-fermenting my pizza dough for 48 hours and my family is hooked. I developed this recipe with inspiration from my mom’s original pizza dough recipe and cold fermentation techniques from my two brothers, who are serious foodies. A long rise in the fridge produces a crust with superior flavour and structure – a little bit of squish and chew with a touch of crisp.
Plus, there are wellness benefits. As part of a healthy lifestyle, I usually avoid white and wheat flour unless it’s sourdough, sprouted or – in this case – cold fermented, which makes the gluten easier to digest and often better tolerated by those with food sensitivities.
Don’t be discouraged by the thought of cold-fermenting. You just need to make the dough two to three days in advance – or you can make it further ahead and freeze it. Plan ahead, and you have one less thing to do on pizza night. The results are more than worth it.
This recipe is great with a simple, no-cook sauce made from a large can of peeled tomatoes, puréed with a pinch of salt and some basil or chili flakes. Once you get comfortable, you can experiment with different flours, like spelt or Italian Tipo 00, and cooking methods like the BBQ. Your pizza takeout days will be over.
Cold Fermented
Pizza Dough
- 750 g (6 cups) all-purpose flour (plus extra for dusting)
- 12 ml (2 1/2 tsp) sea salt
- 450 ml warm water
- 15 ml (1 tbsp) active dry yeast
- 60 ml (4 tbsp) extra virgin olive oil, plus extra
- Add the yeast to the water and set it aside for 10 to 20 minutes, until it bubbles.
- Mix the flour and salt in a large, wide bowl. Stir the 4 tbsp of oil into the yeast-water mixture, then add to the dry ingredients and combine with a wooden spoon or Danish dough whisk, then your hands, until the ingredients are fully mixed and form a ball. Add 1 to 2 tbsp of water if the dough seems too dry. Knead the dough for 5 minutes inside the bowl, then transfer to an airtight container or Ziploc bag and put it in the fridge for 48 to 72 hours.
- On pizza day, take your dough out of the fridge 4 hours ahead. Divide it into 4 parts, shaped into balls. (At this point the balls of dough can be frozen in an airtight container. Before baking, thaw them in the fridge for several hours or overnight, then carry on from here.)
- Brush the dough balls lightly with olive oil and place them in a dish large enough for them to expand. Cover the dish with a damp dish towel and set aside at room temperature for 4 hours.
- About an hour before baking, preheat the oven to 550 F. Ideally, use a pizza stone on the centre rack, preheated with the oven. Or use an inverted baking sheet, a cast iron skillet, or a perforated pizza pan.
- After the four hours, put a handful of flour on a plate and dust one ball in the flour, brushing off any excess. On a clean counter or cutting board, pound the dough with your fingers, outward towards the crust edge, taking care not to press on the actual edges. Gently stretch the dough into a pizza shape with your hands. Most importantly, don’t use a rolling pin! Your dough has worked hard during the fermentation to create bubbles (from carbon dioxide) and you don’t want to flatten them.
- Place the stretched pizza dough on a lightly floured pizza peel (or use parchment paper, a pizza pan or baking sheet) and dress it with your favourite sauce and toppings.
- Deliver the dough to the pizza stone with confidence, but have a metal spatula nearby in case it goes crust up! Set a timer and check your pizza after 6 minutes. The crust should be golden brown in spots. Another option is to bake the pizza on the lower rack for 4 minutes, and then turn on the broiler for a few minutes to finish the top. Get started on the next pizza while you wait.
- Remove the finished pizza with a pizza peel or spatula and slide it onto a wooden cutting board, or a cookie rack for faster cooling.
Makes four generous personal-sized pizzas.
