Sourdough Pizza Crust

4-3/4  cups		C. bread flour
1  cup		tomato or V 8 juice or beer, at room temperature
1  cup		buttermilk or kefir, at room temperature
1/2  teaspoon		dry active/instant yeast : ½ tsp (24 hour rise) or ¾ tsp (18 hour rise) or (12 hour rise) or 2 tsp (6 hour rise)
2  teaspoons		salt
1  teaspoon		sugar or xylitol

Tip: For nutritional information on all the ingredients in Sourdough Pizza Crust just click on each ingredient name. Then adjust the serving size for any Sourdough Pizza Crust ingredient with the serving size tool in the nutrition facts area to the right to see how you can save calories, carbs and more.

First, decide when you would like to bake your bread, in 12, 18 or 24 hours and then measure out the amount of yeast accordingly (amazingly enough, the beer and fermented milk do not sour even after 36 hours but I prefer the 24-hour process)

In a smallish mixing bowl, gently whisk together 1 C. of the room temperature beer or tomato or V-8 juice, 1 C. of the room temperature kefir or buttermilk, the sugar, and the 3/4 C. of flour. Add the dry active/instant yeast, stir and let sit several minutes (it won’t become frothy because it will not be warm enough).

Place the salt at the bottom of your mixer bowl and cover with the 4 C. flour.

Add the yeast mixture to the flour and salt mixture in the mixing bowl, do not stir, and let rest for 1 minute. Mix with paddle until mixed, and then knead with the dough hook for 5-7 minutes at low/medium speed, adding extra tablespoons of flour, beer or Kefir as needed.

Oil a large bowl, place dough inside, cover with plastic film and let rise until double in size at average room temperature for 10-12 hours (with 1 tsp yeast) or 20-22 hours (with 1/2 tsp yeast). Do not put it in the oven with light on ... it will rise enough without that.

if your bowl is large enough and very rounded, sprinkle flour on the inside and fold the dough over with a large rubber spatula, directly inside the bowl, sprinkle the sides of the bowl with more flour and keep folding over several times (if not, transfer to a well-floured surface and fold over several times, on a flat surface)

After the folding, heavily flour a large piece of parchment paper, let dough fall out of the bowl onto the parchment paper (or simply transfer it if you did not flour and fold it in the bowl), shape into a nice round ball and sprinkle with flour, cover with a larger bowl (turned upside down) and let rise again for 1 ½-2 hours in a cold oven with light turned on.

Remove rising bread and preheat your oven to its maximum temperature. Put a cast-iron dutch oven or Stone baker (and its cover) inside the oven. Heat for 30-35 minutes. (I let the bread rise in the stone baker, on parchment paper and only put the lid into the oven.)

Carefully remove the very hot cast-iron dutch oven, lift up the parchment paper with the dough (this may require 4 hands) and lower/place everything inside the very hot dutch oven, make 1 large cross-cut with a very sharp knife or blade, cover with the lid and bake for 30-35 minutes, then remove cover, sprinkle/spray the bread and oven with water (to create steam) and let bake another 10-15 minutes until the crust is golden and crispier.

After the total 45 minutes baking time, tap the bread on the underside to see if it is ready, when you tap it on the underside, it should make a hollow sound; if you would like to bake it more to make it crustier, remove the baked bread from the dutch oven, remove the parchment paper and spray the oven and all sides of the baked bread with water and bake for another 2-3 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack for 30 minutes before slicing.

**For pizza crust,** after the first rise, divide the dough into two. Pat each into a sprayed perforated pizza pan. If the dough snaps back when you try to spread it, wait 15 minutes. Spray the dough with olive oil spray and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Toward the end of that time, put the rack in the top oven to the top position and preheat oven to 450. Parbake the crusts for 10 minutes on that very high rack. Then top with sauce and vegetables that need cooking (spinach, onions, garlic), and cook 5 more minutes. Then top with cheese and then vegetables that don't need much cooking (mushrooms, artichokes, olives) and cook for 5 more minutes.

OR after parbaking, put one crust into refrigerator or freezer for later.