Making the perfect pizza

You’ll only use one 200 g ball of dough and about 3 Tbsp. pizza sauce to make one pie, so you’ll have lots left over—with the best-ever excuse to invite people over for a pizza party. And with the amount of love, time, and research that went into making what constitutes the “perfect” pizza, you’ll definitely want to share. But you can also freeze the dough for up to two weeks to keep it on hand for whenever you need it.

INGREDIENTS

Pizza Dough

• 250 g Central Milling Organic High Mountain flour
• 150 g freshly milled flour (from Central Milling Organic Steel Cut Cracked Wheat) or Central Milling Organic High Mountain flour or high-quality whole wheat flour
• 30 g Diamond Crystal kosher salt
• 600 g King Arthur all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 150 g sourdough starter
• 50 g Frankie’s extra-virgin olive oil
• 5 g fresh cake yeast, finely crumbled

Pizza Sauce

• 2 28-oz. cans Bianco DiNapoli whole peeled tomatoes
• 3 thin slices of garlic (not 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced!)
• 2 Tbsp. Frankie’s extra-virgin olive oil
• ¼ tsp. kosher salt

Assembly

• 1 oz. imported mozzarella di bufala (such as Antiche Bontà Mozarella di bufala Campana), torn into quarter-size pieces
• 1 oz. fior di latte mozzarella, torn into quarter-size pieces
• 2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more
• 4 oz. maitake mushrooms, torn into 1″ pieces
• Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
• 2 Calabrian chiles from a jar, coarsely chopped
• 1 200 g ball Pizza Dough (see above)
• King Arthur all-purpose flour (for dusting)
• 3 Tbsp. Pizza Sauce (see above)
• ½ garlic clove, very thinly sliced
• 4 oz. 2-year-aged Parmesan, coarsely grated
• 6 basil leaves, torn
• 1 lemon

Special Equipment

• A Breville Pizzaiolo oven; a wooden pizza peel (no more than 10″ wide and ¼” thick); a kitchen scale; a bench scraper; a food mill

RECIPE PREPARATION

Pizza Dough

• Mix High Mountain flour, freshly milled flour, salt, and 600 g all-purpose flour in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook just to combine.
• Whisk starter and 660 g room-temperature water in a large measuring glass to combine, then add oil and yeast and whisk until well blended.
• Make a well in dry ingredients and pour in starter mixture. Mix on low speed, increasing speed to medium as dry ingredients are incorporated, until well combined. Scrape down sides of bowl and fold in any flour, if needed. Remove bowl from mixer and scrape dough from hook. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; let dough rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
• Uncover dough and fit bowl back onto mixer. Mix on medium speed until you’re able to pinch and stretch a small piece of dough between your fingers until translucent and doesn’t rip, about 10 minutes (dough should look sticky but cohesive, and it should be very elastic and jiggly). Transfer dough to a very large bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm, draft-free spot (near the oven is great) until 50 percent expanded in volume, about 3 hours.
• Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Lightly flour your hands, scale, bench scraper, and 2 small rimmed baking sheets.
• Divide dough into 200 g portions. Working one at a time, form each portion into a tight, even ball, rotating on counter and tucking under and pinching on bottom of ball to seal. Try to handle the ball as little as possible to keep dough from deflating. Using bench scraper, place balls seam side down on floured baking sheets, spacing evenly apart. Lightly sprinkle dough with some flour and cover baking sheets tightly with plastic as you go. Chill at least 24 hours and up to 48 before using.
• Do Ahead: Dough can be made 2 weeks ahead. Wrap balls tightly with plastic wrap and freeze. Let thaw in refrigerator overnight. Note: The frozen dough won’t bake with as many bubbles or be as light as the fresh dough. It might also be stickier and harder to work with. Because of the idiosyncrasies of using starter, the success of using frozen dough will vary.

Pizza Sauce

• Place tomatoes (without juice from can) in a colander to drain. Pass tomatoes through a food mill (using the medium disk) into a medium bowl (you should have about 2 cups purée). Mix in garlic, oil, and salt. Let sit at least 30 minutes before using.
• Do Ahead: Sauce can be made 2 days ahead. Cover and chill.

Assembly

• Preheat a Breville Pizzaiolo oven to 700°. Place mozzarella and fior di latte in a fine-mesh sieve set over a medium bowl and let sit 30 minutes to drain.
• Drizzle a little oil in a large skillet and swirl pan to lightly coat. Heat over medium-high. Add mushrooms in a single layer and cook, undisturbed, until lightly browned underneath and starting to soften, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and toss mushrooms. Continue to cook, tossing occasionally, until lightly browned all over and softened, about 3 minutes more. Remove from heat and set aside.
• Place chiles in a small bowl and mix in just enough oil to make a tight sauce; set aside.
• Use a bench scraper to swiftly lift a ball of Pizza Dough from baking sheet, then invert it into a large bowl of flour, seam side up. Pass dough back and forth between your hands to knock off some flour. Place domed side up on work surface and use your fingertips to press dimples in dough, working from the center toward the outer edge and maintaining a circular shape. Stop dimpling 1″ before outer edge of dough (this will become the crust, and you want it to rise and puff higher than the center of the dough). After dimpling, stretch dough over the backs of your hands, moving in a circular pattern to create a 10″ round. Place onto very lightly floured peel.
• Spoon Pizza Sauce onto center of dough. Working in a spiral from the center outward, use spoon to spread sauce all the way to the inner edge of the crust.
• Top pizza with drained mozzarella and fior di latte, then garlic. Scatter several pieces of reserved mushroom around and sprinkle 1 Tbsp. Parmesan over. Slide pizza into oven and cook, rotating halfway through, until crust is puffed and charred in spots, cheese is melted, and underside of crust is golden brown with some darker leopard spots, 3 minutes. Remove pizza from oven. Drizzle with reserved chile sauce and sprinkle with another 1½ tsp. Parmesan. Arrange basil on top and finely grate a light dusting of lemon zest over.