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DOUGHRISEFOUNDERS
Baking Tips
5 min read
Smoked Salmon, Crème Fraîche & Dill Sourdough Flatbread Pizza
A spring sourdough flatbread pizza topped with crème fraîche, smoked salmon and fresh dill. Light, tangy and perfect for the season.
pizza on white ceramic plateSpring is properly starting to show up now, and this sourdough flatbread pizza feels exactly right for it. The base is thin and blistered with a good chew from the fermentation, topped with cool crème fraîche, salty smoked salmon and a scatter of fresh dill that just lifts the whole thing. It is the kind of recipe you pull out on a Saturday when you want something a bit special but genuinely cannot be bothered with anything complicated.
Why This Works So Well
The key here is keeping things cold after the ferment. You build a proper flavour in the dough during bulk, then once the toppings go on, you want that crème fraîche cold so it does not cook into something greasy. The residual heat from the oven warms it just enough. Smoked salmon goes on after baking, same with the capers and dill, and the result is a flatbread pizza that tastes genuinely considered without you having to overthink it.
This is also a brilliant one for showing off to people. I made a version of this a few weeks back after a Friday evening at the pub with a couple of mates, got home, shaped the doughs I had cold-proofed that morning, and we had something on the table in under fifteen minutes. Impressed enough people that I have made it three times since.
Ingredients
For the Sourdough Flatbread Dough
- 300g (about 2 cups) strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
- 75g (about 5 tbsp) active sourdough starter, fed and bubbly
- 185g (about ¾ cup) lukewarm water
- 7g (1¼ tsp) fine sea salt
- 1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for the bowl
For the Topping
- 150g (about ⅔ cup) full-fat crème fraîche
- 1 small clove of garlic, finely grated
- Zest of half a lemon
- Salt and white pepper to taste
- 150g smoked salmon, sliced
- 2 tbsp small capers, rinsed
- A small handful of fresh dill fronds
- A few thin slices of red onion
- A drizzle of good olive oil to finish
Method
- Mix the flour, water, active sourdough starter and olive oil together in a large bowl until a shaggy dough forms. Leave it to rest for 30 minutes (this is your autolyse, and it does a lot of the gluten-building work for you without any effort).
- Add the salt, then work it into the dough by squeezing and folding for a minute or two until fully incorporated. The dough should start feeling smoother already.
- Cover the bowl and leave to bulk ferment at room temperature for around 3 to 4 hours. During the first two hours, do a set of stretch and folds every 30 minutes or so, four sets in total. After that, just leave it alone. You are looking for the dough to feel airy and have grown by about 50 to 75 percent.
- Divide the dough into two equal pieces and shape each loosely into a ball. Place them on a lightly floured tray, cover with a damp cloth or cling film, and refrigerate for at least an hour. You can leave them overnight if you want to bake the next day.
- About 45 minutes before you want to bake, put a baking stone or heavy baking tray in the oven and crank it to its highest temperature, usually 250°C to 260°C (480°F to 500°F). You want it screaming hot.
- Mix the crème fraîche with the grated garlic, lemon zest, salt and white pepper. Keep it in the fridge until needed.
- Take a dough ball and stretch it out on a well-floured surface into a rough oval, about 25 to 30 centimetres long and as thin as you can comfortably get it without tearing. Do not bother with a rolling pin here, use your hands and let gravity do some of the work.
- Spread a generous layer of the crème fraîche mixture over the base, leaving a small border around the edge. Transfer carefully onto your hot baking stone or tray (a floured pizza peel or the back of a flat baking sheet works well for this).
- Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until the edges are deeply golden and the base has charred spots underneath. Check the underside by lifting an edge with a palette knife.
- Slide out of the oven and immediately lay the smoked salmon across the top. Scatter over the capers, red onion, and fresh dill. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and a few cracks of black pepper if you like. Repeat with the second dough ball.
Baker's Tips
- Do not skip the hot tray. This is the single biggest variable between a flatbread with a flabby bottom and one with a proper blistered base. The moment the dough hits that hot surface, it starts cooking from underneath immediately. If you are doing this regularly, a baking stone is genuinely worth having. The DoughRise Bread Making Tool Kit includes everything you need to get set up for this kind of bake without buying a dozen separate bits.
- Keep the smoked salmon cold until serving. If you lay it on the hot flatbread straight out of the oven, the heat will cook it and you will lose that silky texture. Give it 60 seconds on the base first so the temperature drops slightly, then add your toppings.
- Your dough hydration will depend on your starter. If your active sourdough starter is quite liquid (100% hydration), your dough may feel a little wetter than expected. That is fine. Just flour your hands and work surface generously when shaping, and resist adding extra flour to the dough itself as it will tighten up as you stretch it.
A Note on Timing
The beauty of this recipe in spring is that your kitchen is finally warming back up after a long winter, which means bulk fermentation moves along at a much friendlier pace. After months of waiting forever for dough to show any signs of life, this time of year you might find your bulk is done closer to three hours than four. Keep an eye on it rather than watching the clock. You want the dough to look alive, airy and slightly domed when you press it gently, with a little resistance that slowly springs back.
Serving
These flatbreads are best eaten immediately, straight from the oven with your toppings on. A cold glass of something crisp alongside goes without saying. If you are making them for a group, bake one at a time and keep the second dough ball in the fridge while the first one cooks. The slight chill actually makes the second one a bit easier to stretch out anyway.
Give this one a go this weekend while the light is finally hanging around a bit longer in the evenings. It is an easy win and the kind of thing that will genuinely make you glad you keep a starter going year round.
Happy baking! Find everything you need at doughrise.store
Photo by Mariusz Słoński on Unsplash