I know that I just posted about how I was planning to make a sourdough pizza last Saturday and I did. I just wanted to give you an update.
Saturday, about noon time, I made the actual dough from the starter that I had been feeding since Wednesday. And all went well! I left the dough to rise for about 3 hours in a large bowl. I had some errands to run, and I thought I would be home within that 3 hour window of time before the dough would be ready to push out, top and bake. I really under-estimated how much time my errands would take and did not get home until about 5 hours later. Oops!!
I really was afraid to see the state of the dough in the bowl. One of two things could have happened. First, the dough could have run out of food for the yeast and sank down into the bowl, dying a miserable death. Or second, the dough would have grown way out of control oozing up and over the top of the bowl.
Luckily, the lesser of the two above evils happened and the dough did not collapse and “die”. It did, however, grow quite HUGE. I mean HUGE!!! It reminded me of the scary science fiction movie called “The Blob” that I saw when I was a kid and couldn’t sleep for at least a week without having my father check all of my shoes and the closet in my room. I almost needed therapy after that one.
No, the dough thrived. I quickly pressed it out into my oiled sheet pan and topped it and baked it before it took over the world. I must say, and my family agreed with me, that this monster of a pizza was the best one I ever made.
So if you ever inadvertently leave your dough out for too long don’t despair. All hope is not lost, because you might just get the best Monster-Sized Pizza the world has ever seen.
We will be eating that “Thing” for days and enjoying every minute of it!
Happy Baking!
Chef Gail