Sourdough Pizza Base: 24 Hours, Two Pizzas, No Compromise

A great sourdough pizza base is what every home pizza-maker actually wants — the chewy edge, the soft yielding centre, the slight char on the underside, the deep wheaty flavour that comes only from a long ferment. None of that requires a wood-fired oven. What it needs is the right dough recipe, a 24-hour ferment, and a properly hot domestic oven set up the way the bakeries do it.

The base recipe

Ingredient	Weight	Baker's %
Type 00 or strong white flour	500g	100%
Water	325g	65%
Active sourdough starter	75g	15%
Fine sea salt	12g	2.4%
Olive oil (optional, for tenderness)	10g	2%

Makes 4 × 220g dough balls (each yielding a 30cm pizza).

What separates a great pizza base from a mediocre one

The dough is half the equation. The other half is technique. Five things separate restaurant-quality from "home-made pizza":

1. Long, cold fermentation. 24 hours minimum in the fridge. Builds flavour, makes the dough easier to stretch.
2. The right hydration. 60–68% for crisp-edged Neapolitan; 70–75% for puffier Roman-style.
3. Confident hand-stretching instead of rolling. A rolling pin destroys the bubbles that give you a proper crust.
4. Maximum oven heat. Anything below 240°C produces a soft pale base instead of a crisp charred one.
5. A pizza stone or steel preheated for 60+ minutes. Without thermal mass, the base goes soggy.

If you nail those five, you can make pizza in a domestic oven that genuinely rivals what you'd get in an independent pizzeria.

The 24-hour timeline

This is the same timeline as our Jamie-Oliver-style pizza dough, refined slightly for higher hydration and more open-crumb edge.

Day 1, 6pm — Mix

Combine the flour, water, and starter in a large bowl. Mix to a shaggy dough. Cover and rest 30 minutes.

Day 1, 6:30pm — Add salt and oil

Sprinkle the salt over the dough, dribble in the oil. Pinch and squeeze through. The dough will tighten as you work.

Day 1, 7pm–9:30pm — Three stretch-and-folds, 45 minutes apart

By the third fold, the dough should feel smooth, elastic, slightly tacky.

Day 1, 10pm — Divide and ball

Tip out, divide into 4 × 220g pieces, shape each into a tight ball. Place into oiled containers with room to grow.

Day 1, 10pm — Into the fridge

The cold ferment is where the flavour develops. Minimum 24 hours; ideally 36–48; up to 72 hours for maximum complexity (no further benefit beyond that).

Day 2 (or 3), evening — Bake

Take the dough balls out 60–90 minutes before you want to bake. They need to be at room temperature before you stretch them.

Three styles of base from the same dough

Neapolitan

Stretch to 30cm thin, leaving a 2cm puffy border (the cornicione). Top sparingly with crushed San Marzano tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil. Bake at maximum heat. Eat with a knife and fork — the centre is meant to be soft and slightly wet.

Roman

Stretch slightly thicker (with a slight rolling-pin pass for the centre, gentle), all the way to the edge — no cornicione. Top with whatever you like. Bakes crisper because there's no thick edge holding the moisture.

Pinsa

A Roman variant. Stretch into an oval. Higher hydration (push to 75%). Bake on a stone with toppings, then add cured meats or cold cheese after baking. The crust is light and crisp like a cracker.

The pizza steel revelation

If you bake pizza more than a few times a year, buy a pizza steel. £35–50, lasts forever, transforms domestic pizza. Steel conducts heat far better than ceramic, so the base browns in a third of the time. A pizza steel preheated for 45 minutes can put out a 4-minute pizza that genuinely passes for restaurant-grade.

If a steel isn't an option, a thick (2cm+) ceramic pizza stone works almost as well. Avoid the thin cordierite stones — they crack quickly and don't hold enough heat.

How to set up a domestic oven

The trick is to maximise top heat. Pizza in a wood-fired oven cooks from above (radiant heat from the dome) and below (the floor). Domestic ovens are weak from above; you compensate by putting the rack high.

1. Place the steel/stone on the second-from-top rack.
2. Preheat at maximum temperature for 60 minutes.
3. If your oven has a grill function, switch to combined grill + bake (or use the grill alone for the last minute).
4. Slide the pizza in directly onto the steel.
5. Bake 4–5 minutes, watching closely.

The combination of preheated steel below and radiant top heat from the grill gives you the closest you can get to a wood-fired oven without spending £400.

Stretching technique

Tip a room-temperature dough ball onto a counter heavily dusted with semolina. Press the centre flat with your fingertips, leaving a 2cm border. Pick up the dough on the back of your knuckles (not your fingers) and rotate it gently between your hands — gravity does the stretching. Lay it down again when it's the right size.

If it tears, patch the hole and continue. Tears at this stage are normal and don't ruin the pizza.

Topping principles

Less is more. The single biggest mistake home cooks make is overloading. Three rules:

• Sauce: 2–3 tablespoons per pizza, no more.
• Cheese: 100g per pizza, drained on kitchen paper if it's fresh mozzarella.
• Other toppings: 60–80g maximum.

Don't pile. Distribute. Leave gaps where you can see the dough — those are the spots where the base will crisp dramatically.

The bake-day rhythm

Pizza is a fast-fire job. Once the oven is preheated, you want to be making pizzas one after the other. Set up like a tiny pizzeria:

• Toppings prepped and laid out.
• Dough balls on the counter, dusted.
• Peel ready, dusted with semolina.
• Wire rack on the worktop for resting.

Stretch, top, slide in, set timer. Stretch the next while the first bakes. By the time pizza three is in the oven, you'll have a rhythm and the bakes will all turn out the same.

Common problems and fixes

Soggy centre: too wet a sauce or too much cheese, or the base never made contact with the hot stone. Drain mozzarella, reduce sauce, slide pizza directly onto the steel.

No leoparding on the crust: oven not hot enough or not enough top heat. Push the rack higher and use the grill function.

Dough won't stretch — keeps springing back: needs more rest. Either let it warm to room temperature longer (90 minutes), or under-bulked overnight. Don't fight it.

Tough chewy crust: short ferment. The cold ferment is non-negotiable for a great pizza base.

Pizza sticks to the peel: use semolina, not flour. Don't let the topped pizza sit on the peel for more than 60 seconds.

Make ahead, freeze, and reheat

Dough balls freeze beautifully. After the 24-hour cold ferment, transfer the balls to airtight bags and freeze. Defrost overnight in the fridge, then bring to room temperature for 2 hours before stretching.

Cooked pizza reheats best in a hot dry frying pan on the hob — 3 minutes covered. Microwaves turn the crust to leather; ovens take too long.

FAQ

Can I use my white sourdough recipe and just make pizza shapes?

Possibly, but the result will be more like flatbread than pizza. Pizza dough has different hydration, less starter, and longer cold ferment than country loaves.

Why does my pizza have a hard, biscuity base?

Either too long under the broiler/grill, or the dough was over-fermented. A perfect Neapolitan base should be slightly soft and pliable in the middle, crisp at the edges.

Is type 00 flour really necessary?

Strong white bread flour gives 95% of the result for none of the hassle. Type 00 produces a slightly more tender, slightly more elastic dough — a noticeable difference if you're chasing perfection, irrelevant if you're just making weeknight pizza.

How long can I keep dough balls in the fridge?

72 hours maximum. Beyond that the gluten breaks down and the dough goes slack.

What if I don't have a peel?

Use the back of a baking tray dusted heavily with semolina. Slide the pizza off carefully.

How thin should the base be?

Neapolitan: 4–5mm in the centre, fluffy 2cm cornicione at the edge. Roman: 3–4mm overall. New York: 4–6mm overall, slightly thicker than Neapolitan but still thin.

Pizza Friday: a sustainable home routine

Pizza is the most repeatable celebration meal in our kitchen. Mix dough Wednesday or Thursday evening (15 minutes of work). Cold ferment until Friday. Stretch and bake on Friday night, one pizza at a time, while a glass of wine breathes. Total active time: 45 minutes spread across two evenings. Cost per pizza: about £2 of ingredients. Quality: better than the £14 takeaway and substantially more fun.

This is the single most cost-effective sourdough recipe we've found. A weekly pizza night pays for the kit (steel, peels, occasional flour) within a couple of months and from then on saves real money against takeaway, while producing a meaningfully better dinner.

Common toppings and their pitfalls

Pepperoni

Real cured pepperoni curls and crisps in a hot oven, releasing flavoured oil that pools on the cheese. Cheap pepperoni stays flat and rubbery — buy from a deli or a good Italian grocer.

Mushrooms

Sauté mushrooms briefly in butter before topping. Raw mushrooms release water during baking and make the pizza soggy.

Pineapple (yes, we'll address it)

Drain the juice thoroughly. Pat dry with kitchen paper. Otherwise the moisture ruins the crust. We're not here to judge.

Egg

Crack onto the pizza in the last 90 seconds of bake. Cooks just to runny yolk. The Italian classic — pizza con uovo.

Salad/rocket

Add after the pizza comes out of the oven. Wilted rocket is sad rocket.

Truffle oil

Drizzle after baking, never before. Heat destroys the delicate compounds and leaves only the petrol notes. A genuine pet hate of every Italian pizza chef.

The home pizza ladder

1. First three Friday-night pizzas: just margherita. Master the dough, stretching, and bake.
2. Pizzas 4–10: introduce one new topping per night. Build your pizza vocabulary.
3. Pizzas 10+: start experimenting with white-base pizzas, dessert pizzas, focaccia variations from the same dough.

Within two months you'll be making pizza that genuinely competes with anything you'd order. The dough is the foundation; the toppings are personality.

What to do with leftover pizza dough

If you've made too much, the leftovers go further than you'd think. Roll a leftover ball flat, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and rosemary — you've got focaccia. Stretch into thin strips, bake at 200°C — you've got grissini. Stretch and top with garlic butter and parmesan — you've got cheesy garlic bread that beats anything frozen.

Or freeze the dough balls for next week. The cold ferment can be paused at any point by transferring to the freezer; defrost overnight in the fridge to resume.

The four mistakes new pizza-makers all make

1. Using too much sauce. 2–3 tablespoons. The sauce should colour the dough, not soak it.
2. Putting toppings too close to the edge. Leave a clear 2cm border so the cornicione can puff.
3. Topping while the dough is on the peel. Top on a separate surface, then transfer to the peel just before baking. Dough sticks to peels in seconds.
4. Opening the oven too often. Every door opening drops the temperature by 30°C. Open once to slide the pizza in, once to take it out. That's it.