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Recipe
6 min read
Sourdough Pizza with Anchovies, Roasted Garlic & Whipped Butter Beans: The Umami Pizza Worth Making This Summer
A deeply savoury sourdough pizza topped with anchovies, roasted garlic, and whipped butter beans. Real flavour, simple technique, perfect for a summer evening.
Photo by Emily G on UnsplashThere is a moment, right after this pizza comes out of the oven, where the anchovies are still sizzling slightly and the smell of roasted garlic fills the whole kitchen. That is the moment. You know it when it hits you.
This is the pizza I keep coming back to in summer, partly because it is brilliant with a cold beer after a long week, and partly because it is the kind of thing that looks and tastes far more considered than the effort involved. The base is a sourdough pizza dough fermented slowly in the fridge overnight, giving you that characteristic chew and gentle tang. On top: whipped butter beans (yes, really) in place of tomato sauce, sweet roasted garlic, good anchovies, and a scatter of fresh herbs to finish. It sounds a bit unusual. It absolutely works. The whipped butter beans give you this creamy, savoury backdrop that lets the anchovies do their thing without everything getting too sharp or acidic. Think of it as a white pizza that decided to grow up a bit.
Dough
- 350g strong white bread flour
- 245g cold water (around 70% hydration)
- 70g active sourdough starter (100% hydration)
- 8g (1½ tsp) fine sea salt
- 10g (2 tsp) extra virgin olive oil
Roasted Garlic
- 1 whole head of garlic
- Olive oil, to drizzle
- Pinch of sea salt
Whipped Butter Bean Base
- 400g tin of butter beans, drained and rinsed
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 small clove of garlic, raw
- Salt and white pepper to taste
- 2–3 tbsp warm water (to loosen)
Toppings (per pizza)
- 6–8 good-quality anchovy fillets in oil
- 50g low-moisture mozzarella, torn or grated
- Small handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley
- Pinch of dried chilli flakes
- Extra virgin olive oil, to finish
- Lemon zest, optional but worth it
Baker's Tips
- Use the coldest water you have for the dough mix in summer. Warm kitchens speed up fermentation fast, and cold water gives you more control over the process from the very beginning.
- Do not skip resting the dough balls at room temperature for 60–90 minutes before baking. Cold dough fresh from the fridge tears when you stretch it. That rest period is what lets you open the dough properly without any fight.
- If you are trying to get this recipe dialled in for your flour or your kitchen environment, the DoughRise Coach is genuinely useful here. You can send it your exact conditions and get a personalised fermentation plan rather than guessing. Takes the stress out of it completely.
METHOD
- Mix the dough. In a large bowl, combine the flour, water, and active sourdough starter. Mix until no dry flour remains, then leave it to rest for 30 minutes. This short rest before salt goes in helps the flour fully hydrate and makes the dough noticeably easier to work with.
- Add salt and olive oil. After the rest, sprinkle over the salt and drizzle in the olive oil. Work both into the dough using your fingers, pinching and folding until fully incorporated. The dough will feel slippery at first , just keep going for a minute or two and it will come together.
- Stretch and fold. Over the next 2 hours at room temperature, perform 3–4 sets of stretch and folds, spaced about 30 minutes apart. Grab one side of the dough, stretch it up, and fold it back over itself. Rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat four times per set. The dough will become noticeably smoother and more elastic with each round.
- Divide and ball. After the folds are done and the dough has relaxed, turn it out onto an unfloured surface. Divide into two equal pieces (roughly 330g each). Shape each piece into a tight ball using light tension on the surface. Place them into lightly oiled containers or on a lightly oiled tray, cover, and refrigerate overnight. Anywhere from 10 to 16 hours works well.
- Roast the garlic. At some point during the day (this can happen well before the bake), slice the top off the garlic head to expose the cloves, drizzle generously with olive oil and a pinch of salt, wrap in foil, and roast at 180°C for 45–50 minutes until golden, soft, and completely yielding. Leave to cool, then squeeze the cloves out and set aside.
- Make the whipped butter beans. Blitz the drained butter beans with olive oil, lemon juice, raw garlic, salt, white pepper, and enough warm water to get a smooth, spreadable consistency. Taste it. It should be well-seasoned and almost a little sharp , the anchovies will add a lot of salt on top, so go lighter than you think with the extra seasoning.
- Preheat hard and long. At least 45–60 minutes before you plan to bake, place a baking stone or heavy steel tray on the highest shelf of your oven and set the temperature as high as it will go, typically 250–280°C. The longer you preheat, the better the base. This is not a step to rush.
- Rest the dough balls. Take the dough out of the fridge 60–90 minutes before you want to bake. Leave them covered at room temperature. Cold dough is almost impossible to stretch evenly, and it will tear if you push it. Patience here pays off directly on the plate.
- Stretch the dough. On a lightly floured surface, gently press each dough ball from the centre outwards with your fingertips, leaving the outer edge slightly thicker. Once you have a rough disc shape, lift it and let gravity do some of the work, moving your hands around the edge and letting the dough stretch under its own weight. Aim for roughly 28–30 centimetres across.
- Top and bake. Transfer the stretched dough onto a lightly floured pizza peel or flat baking tray. Spread a generous layer of whipped butter beans across the base, leaving a 2cm border. Scatter over torn mozzarella, then lay the anchovy fillets evenly across the top. Add a few of the roasted garlic cloves, dotted around. Slide onto your hot stone and bake for 10–12 minutes until the crust is deeply coloured, blistered at the edges, and the anchovies have curled and crisped slightly at the edges.
- Finish and serve. Straight out of the oven, scatter over chopped flat-leaf parsley, a pinch of chilli flakes, and a little lemon zest if you are using it. A final drizzle of your best olive oil. Eat immediately while the base still has that crunch.
Why this works
Stretch and fold builds gluten strength without overworking the dough. Each fold aligns the gluten strands and adds tension, which is what gives you that satisfying chew in the finished base. For pizza dough specifically, this structure also helps the dough hold its shape during stretching, so you get an even thickness rather than a base that thins out in the middle and collapses.
INTO THE OVEN
Adjusting this recipe for a bigger batch or a different flour? Use the free DoughRise Baker's Percentages Calculator to scale your dough accurately without any guesswork.
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