Makes 2 medium pizzas, enough for 2 hungry people with some leftovers. Can easily double or more.

Adapted from Ken Forkish’s overnight poolish pizza dough in Flour Water Salt Yeast (highly recommend!).

Ingredients

Poolish:

  • 250g flour
  • 250g water, ~80F
  • 0.2g instant yeast (a tiny pinch, ~1/16 tsp)

NOTE: consider using some sourdough starter in place of yeast.

Final dough:

  • 250g flour
  • 125g water, ~105F
  • 10g sea salt
  • all of the poolish (~500g)
  • parchment paper, pizza stone, pizza peel

Toppings:

  • pizza sauce
  • pizza cheese
  • meat, veggies, hot peppers, etc

Directions

day/night before

Make the poolish by mixing all ingredients in a bowl until just incorporated. Cover and leave overnight at room temperature. It’s ready when it has roughly tripled in volume, ~12hrs.

pizza day

(start ~8hrs before you want to eat)

Make the dough by first combining the flour and salt. Then add water to the poolish, and pour the water-poolish into the flour mixture. Mix by hand until well-combined and there are minimal lumps (maybe consider a stand mixer). The dough will be very wet.

Return the dough to a covered container to rise. Stretch and fold twice in the first hour of rise. Then let rise, for a total of ~6hrs after mixing, until 2x in size.

Once risen, flour a work surface. Split the dough in half, and form two tight balls, dusted with flour. Cover and let rest for 30-60min.

Meanwhile, place a pizza stone in the oven, 6-8in from broiler. Preheat on bake setting to 500F. You want to preheat for at least 45min, to let the pizza stone come fully up to temp. Prep toppings.

Make pizza (one at a time). Take dough ball, dust with more flour, gently flatten it. Pick it up, and use your knuckles in the center underneath to stretch it into a pizza shape. Flop it onto the counter and stretch more as-needed, leaving a ~1/2in rim untouched (no rolling pins!). You can go as big as you want as long as the center dough doesn’t rip.

Tear off a sheet of parchment paper, place the pizza crust on it. Use scissors to trim the parchment to extend only slightly past the pizza.

Add sauce, toppings, and cheese. Go lighter than you think!

Switch the oven to “pizza” mode, still 500F (or turn the broiler on low if you don’t have it, ovens vary). Place pizza in oven with peel, with parchment paper underneath. After ~2min, slide out the parchment paper. Cook for a total of ~6-8min, until crust is golden and cheese is browned. Then slide out and cool slightly before cutting.

NOTE: I’ve had trouble with cheese browning too fast, consider using a lower oven rack, or only running broiler for part of the cooking time.

Repeat with remaining pizzas, allowing a few minutes for the pizza stone to reheat in between each.