Blistered Home-Oven Cheese Pizza

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

A two-pizza recipe engineered for a regular home oven: a slow, cold-fermented dough, an uncooked crushed-tomato sauce spread thin, and a blend of low-moisture mozzarella and Parmesan. A baking steel (or an inverted sheet pan) preheated at maximum heat for a full hour delivers the leopard-spotted, crisp-but-chewy crust you thought needed a wood oven.

Ingredients

• 350 g bread flour (about 2 3/4 cups)
• 228 g cool water (about 1 cup, 65%hydration)
• 8 g fine sea salt (about 1 1/2 tsp)
• 1/2 tsp instant yeast
• 1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
• Semolina or extra flour, for shaping and launching

• 1 can (14 oz) whole peeled tomatoes, preferably San Marzano
• 3/4 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 small clove garlic, grated (optional)
• 1 pinch dried oregano

• 8 oz low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella, shredded (about 2 cups)
• 1 oz Parmigiano-Reggiano, finely grated (about 1/3 cup)
• 2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
• 6 leaves fresh basil (optional)
• Flaky salt, to finish

Instructions

1. Make the dough 24 to 72 hours ahead. In a large bowl, whisk the bread flour, salt, and instant yeast. Add the cool water and 1 tsp olive oil, then stir with a stiff spatula until no dry flour remains and a shaggy mass forms, about 1 minute. Cover and rest 20 minutes.
2. Knead in the bowl or on an unfloured counter for 3 to 4 minutes, using wet hands and a folding-and-pressing motion, until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the surface cleanly. It should feel tacky but not sticky.
3. Divide into two 290 g pieces. Shape each into a tight ball by dragging it against the counter with cupped hands until the surface is taut. Place each ball in its own lightly oiled quart container or bowl, cover tightly, and refrigerate 24 to 72 hours. This cold ferment is where the flavor and the blistering come from.
4. Make the sauce (up to 3 days ahead). Pour the tomatoes into a bowl and crush them thoroughly with your hands or a potato masher until pulpy with no large chunks; do not blend, which makes the sauce foamy and pale. Stir in 3/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp olive oil, the grated garlic if using, and the oregano. Do not cook it — it will cook on the pizza. Refrigerate.
5. Two hours before baking, pull the dough balls out and let them sit at room temperature, still covered. They should nearly double and feel puffy and relaxed; cold dough will not stretch.
6. One hour before baking, set a baking steel or pizza stone on an oven rack in the upper third of the oven, about 6 inches from the broiler element. No steel or stone? Invert a heavy rimmed sheet pan and use its underside. Heat the oven to its maximum setting, 550°F or higher, for a full 60 minutes. Do not shortcut this preheat.
7. Shred the mozzarella and toss it with the grated Parmesan. Keep it in the refrigerator until the moment you top the pizza — cold cheese browns rather than turning to oil.
8. Shape the first pizza. Dust a work surface generously with semolina. Set a dough ball on it, press the ball flat from the center outward with your fingertips, leaving the outer 3/4 inch untouched for the rim. Lift and stretch on your knuckles, rotating, until you have a 12-inch round about 1/8 inch thick in the center. Patch any tears by pinching.
9. Transfer the round to a semolina-dusted pizza peel, an inverted sheet pan, or a piece of parchment on a cutting board. Working fast, spread 1/3 cup of sauce in a thin layer with the back of a spoon, leaving a 1/2-inch border — the sauce should be a translucent film, not a pool. Scatter half the cheese blend evenly to the sauce edge, then drizzle with 1 tsp olive oil.
10. Launch the pizza onto the hot steel with a quick, confident forward-and-back jerk of the peel. If using parchment, slide it on, then pull the parchment out from under the pizza after 3 minutes. Bake 6 to 8 minutes, until the crust is puffed and spotted and the cheese is bubbling with a few brown patches.
11. For extra char, switch the oven to broil for the final 60 to 90 seconds, watching constantly — the difference between leopard spots and burnt is about 20 seconds.
12. Slide the pizza onto a wire rack (not a cutting board — a rack keeps the bottom crisp) for 2 minutes. Top with basil and a pinch of flaky salt, then cut into 6 slices. Return the oven to full heat for 10 minutes to recover before shaping and baking the second pizza.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

More from Sprig Originals

One-Skillet Blackened Cajun Chicken Pasta

One-Pot Chicken Creole

Dark Roux Seafood Gumbo with Quick Shrimp Stock

Are you this recipe's original author or publisher? Report a problem