Want to make a really exotic pizza crust? Our whole red wheat sourdough pizza dough recipe is going to bring a ton of flavor to your next pizza!
Pizza aficionados will often tell say that it’s the crust that’s the most important part of the pizza. And you know you’ve made the best pizza you can make when every bite of crust disappears!
Whole RED Wheat?
Okay, you may have never even heard of this flour. We stumbled on this product by Farmer Direct Foods when looking for very high protein flour. At 12.5% to 13.5%, that’s a lot of protein! It’s a 100% stone ground whole wheat that has a very rich, nutty flavor, and chewy texture. It really is a unique flavor for a pizza crust! And even if you don’t fancy a sourdough, this is a great option.
When To Use This Pizza Dough
While there’s no question that Neapolitan crust is an unbeatable classic pizza dough, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for something a little more unique and modern – especially when the pizza you’re making calls for your crust to pack a punch!
And so we’re combining whole red wheat (which has a distinctive flavor) with a sourdough starter – BAM!
I first used this crust when making a Peri Peri Paneer Pizza. I felt that the spicy pizza might need a crust flavor that could match up to the flavors.
How to Make Whole Red Wheat Sourdough Pizza Dough
Right up front, I have to tell you that this pizza needs about a week to make.
Yup! A week! That is unless you already have a sourdough starter on hand. Even if you buy a live sourdough starter, it’s still going to take about 3 days to get your pizza going.
Here’s the thing – if you like sourdough, its worth it! It’s also VERY EASY! So, just take your time and plan this amazing pizza dough for next weekend (or the one after). You’ll be happy you did!
But, if you don’t have the time, you can make it without the sourdough starter using this recipe.
Sourdough Starter
As mentioned, the first thing you need to do is to get your sourdough starter going. This generally takes about 6 days to take off (from scratch) and then you need to make our levain. We have all the steps outlined in this post on Pizza starters.
Essentially, you’ll develop your starter, feeding it each day over the course of at least 5 days. Once it’s active and going strong, you’ll separate out half and feed the half you normally discard over the course of 1 additional day to create your levain.
The difference is that for your levain, you want to feed it your red wheat flour exclusively (it doesn’t matter if your starter was made with regular flour, as the bulk of the volume will come from the red whole wheat).
Adding 5 tablespoons (2.5 fluid ounces) of water (~70 grams) and 8 tablespoons of whole red wheat flour (also ~70 grams) to 2.5 ounces (by weight – again, about 70 grams) will yield a total of about 7 ounces of levain. Let the levain develop over at least 8, but preferably 24 hours at room temperature.
Preparing Your Whole Red Wheat Pizza Dough
You now have 7 ounces of levain that should have a delicious aroma that’s not just characteristic of a typical sourdough, but also has some of the unique character of whole wheat dough as well.
Add the levain to your stand mixer (or you can mix by hand) and add 0.5 cups of water and start the stand mixer on its slowest setting. Slowly add 1.25 cups of whole red wheat flour. The dough should develop into a ball but it may need a little extra kneading time. You might have to stop the mixer and work the dough a little with your hands to make sure it feels well mixed.
You should have a dough ball between 15 and 16 ounces, which will make a nice 14″ pizza (or two smaller individual size pizzas).
Cover the dough with a damp tea towel for an hour to allow the starter to ferment the rest of the dough.
Autolyse Pizza Dough Option
If your whole wheat has a very strong bran, autolyse of your pizza dough is something you might consider. It’s an extra step and takes some work to make sure the ingredients are all well mixed, but it will help soften the flour.
Stretching Out Whole Red Wheat Sourdough Pizza Dough
You’ll likely find this dough is very easy to work with. The high protein content and the time you’ve given it to develop the gluten will make this dough quite structurally sound!
My one caution is that because the dough is very heavy, I find it much better to stretch the dough on the counter and not to “air stretch” it the way you see in the movies. I found the weight made it stretch far too much in the center.
- Place a light layer of flour on your work surface.
- Semolina (coarse) flour can be used for this – and I found it to be really helpful for stretching the dough. But you do not want too much absorbed into the dough.
- Place the dough onto the floured work surface.
- Using your hands or a rolling pin, stretch the dough from the center outward trying to keep a uniform thickness.
- The high gluten content should help you form the dough without making a hole, but you still need to be careful.
- Transfer the dough to an oiled pan or a floured pizza peel.
Cooking Whole Red Wheat Sourdough Pizza Dough
I’ve tried this dough using a pizza pan and in our outdoor pizza oven. I prefer this dough cooked in a pan in a conventional indoor oven at 450º. 8 minutes, rotate, 8 more minutes, and finish with the oven off (transferred to a pizza stone for the finish, if you have one).
Because of the dough’s weight, I found it rather difficult to work with in our outdoor pizza oven, but it can be done. If that’s how you plan to cook your pizzas, I would encourage making two smaller pizzas from the dough ball. I also found that the pizza cooks much better at lower temperatures than the standard 900ºF used to make Neapolitan pizzas – somewhere closer to 600ºF in an outdoor oven will work better.
Whole Red Wheat Sourdough Pizza Dough
Equipment
- 1 Stand Mixer Optional
- 1 Mason jar Or similar container for the sour dough
Ingredients
- 9 ounces flour can be whole wheat, but depending on what other sourdoughs you might want later, you can use different flours.
- 9 ounces water filtered or bottled preferable.
- 1 ½ cups whole red wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
Making a Sourdough Starter
- Add 1 ounce of water to an 8 ounce mason jar. As tap water can have a lot of chlorine (which will inhibit yeast and bacteria growth), filtered or bottled water are better.
- Add 1 ounce of flour of your choice (type 00 or bread flour are the most common).
- Stir with a butter knife so that you can scrape it on the edge – it will be very sticky!
- Cover with a lid and store at room temperature out of sunlight (cupboard is great).
- 24 hours later, you need to feed the starter. You can either discard half of the starter, or you can split it and feed two starters (makes a nice gift for other bakers!)
- Split the starter in two. Discard half (or start a second).Add 1 ounces of water
- Add 1 ounces of flour and stir.Cover and store again at room temperature.
- Repeat again tomorrow.After 3 fermentations, the starter should be bubbling and doubling in size each day, indicating it is fermenting well.Don’t be discouraged if you need to go another couple of days, however further feedings will result in a bigger starter – you may need to move to a bigger jar.
- Once the starter is fermenting well, you can make your Levain.
Making the Levain (Pizza Dough) – 48 Hours
- Separate out 2 ounces of your sourdough starter into a new, slightly larger container (at least 16 ounces).
- Add 2 more ounces of water and 2 more ounces of flour. Store at room temperature for 24 hours.
- Feed this larger starter again in 24 hours. It should be bubbling and growing after each feeding.After You now have a starter weighing about 10 ounces.
- Place your starter in your stand mixer.
- Add 1 teaspoon of salt to the mixer.
- Add 1.5 cups of whole red wheat flour to the bowl and mix on your stand mixer's lowest setting.
- After all the ingredients are incorporated, let it rest for at least 20 minutes but preferably up to 1 hour.
Cooking the Pizza
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
- Lightly oil your pizza pan to help avoid sticking.
- After the dough has rested, lightly oil your hands and press the dough into a circular shape onto a pizza pan.
- Top with your favorite toppings.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until the crust is firm and brown.
Notes
Nutrition
Todd’s cooking skills have revolved around the grill since about age 12, when he developed a love for grilling and took over for Mom at the BBQ. He worked at Wendy’s and at Earl’s Tin Palace (a restaurant chain in Canada) but never really did any sort of baking…until he and Heather started making pizza together! Now he’s often making dough in the mornings and pizza in the evenings.