Sourdough Goat Cheese Red Pepper and Mushroom Pizza

Pizza night is the best, especially when it’s homemade! Homemade pizza is great for a family dinner or if you want to impress some guests. Take-out pizza just can’t compare to homemade crust and fresh, high-quality toppings.

For this sourdough pizza crust, you will need an active sourdough starter. You can read about how to make your own sourdough starter in this post. I love making things that are usually made with yeast with sourdough instead. The cultures in the sourdough starter begin to break down the glutens in the flour, so not only do you get a pizza crust that is extra flavourful, but it’s also easier to digest. If you don’t want to make your own crust, or yours needs to be gluten free, you could use any medium / large size pizza crust. They sell frozen cauliflower pizza crusts that are ready to bake in the natural section freezer in most grocery stores.

I started putting goat cheese on pizza because my oldest daughter who is now four years old has always loved goat cheese so much that she would ask to eat it right out of the package! We put goat cheese on a lot of things in this house because of her. Goat cheese is tangy and very creamy and which makes it a more interesting topping for pizza instead of the traditional mozzarella. Goat’s dairy is also easier to digest for many people compared to cow’s dairy.

Make the sourdough pizza crust dough in the early afternoon and it will be ready for baking by dinner time. You could also make it the night before and leave it to rise slowly in the refrigerator, taking it out about an hour before baking to come to room temperature.

Recipe

Ingredients

Pizza crust
½ cup of sourdough starter
1 ½ cups of unbleached flour
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt
½ cup of water

Toppings
¼ cup of organic pizza sauce
100 grams of soft goat cheese, crumbled
5 mushrooms, stems removed then sliced
½ of a red bell pepper, sliced thinly

Directions
  1. Prepare your pizza crust dough by mixing all of the crust ingredients in a bowl and kneading for 4 minutes. The dough should be smooth and elastic and only slightly sticky. Add more water if the dough is too dry to come together into a soft ball, add more flour if the dough is sticking to your hands. Let the dough rest in a covered bowl for 6 hours at room temperature.
  2. Heat the oven to 425F and grease a baking sheet with some olive oil. Stretch or roll your ball of dough into a large circle, about 10-12 inches in diameter and place on the baking sheet. Top with the pizza sauce in an even layer by spreading with the back of a spoon. Top evenly with the crumbled goat cheese, sliced mushrooms, and sliced red pepper. Bake for 15 minutes, then broil for another 2 minutes or so. The crust should be golden brown and the top of the pizza should not be watery after broiling. Slice and enjoy!

Contributed by Melanie Maxwell, R.H.N.