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Recipe
6 min read
Sourdough Pizza with Roasted Figs, Gorgonzola & Prosciutto: The Late-Summer Bake That Belongs on a Friday Night
Roasted figs, salty gorgonzola and crispy prosciutto on a sourdough pizza base. A proper late-summer Friday night bake with real depth of flavour.
Photo by Daniel Prado on UnsplashThere is something about a fig that only makes sense in August. Split one open after a day sitting in the sun on the windowsill and the smell alone is worth the wait. Now imagine that on a blistered sourdough base with salty gorgonzola pooling around it and prosciutto going crispy at the edges. That is exactly what this pizza is, and it is the kind of thing that makes a Friday evening feel like you have actually lived a bit.
This is not a complicated bake. The dough is a fairly relaxed 65% hydration base, forgiving enough to stretch by hand without too much drama. The toppings do most of the heavy lifting: roasted figs collapse into something jammy and sweet, gorgonzola brings the funk, and the prosciutto crisps up in the oven's heat like it was always meant to end that way. It is the sort of pizza that sounds fancy but genuinely comes together on a weeknight if you have your dough ready the night before.
Dough
- 300g strong white bread flour
- 195g water, lukewarm
- 75g active sourdough starter (at peak)
- 7g (1¼ tsp) fine sea salt
- 10g (2 tsp) extra virgin olive oil
Roasted Figs
- 6 ripe figs, halved
- 15ml (1 tbsp) extra virgin olive oil
- 10ml (2 tsp) balsamic vinegar
- Small pinch of flaky sea salt
Toppings
- 120g gorgonzola dolce, broken into rough pieces
- 80g fresh mozzarella, torn
- 6 slices prosciutto di Parma
- A small handful of rocket, to finish
- 15ml (1 tbsp) good honey, to drizzle
- Freshly ground black pepper
Baker's Tips
- Make the dough the evening before and let it ferment slowly overnight in the fridge. Pull it out an hour before you want to shape it and the gluten will be relaxed and easy to work with.
- Roast the figs on a tray lined with baking paper. They release a lot of juice and you do not want that sticking. A ten-minute blast at 200°C is all they need before going onto the pizza.
- If you are baking regularly and want to stop losing track of your formulas, DoughRise Pro lets you save unlimited recipes, keep a full bake history, and export everything to PDF or CSV. Genuinely handy when you start tweaking toppings and want to remember what worked.
METHOD
- Mix the dough. Combine the flour and water in a large bowl and mix until no dry flour remains. Leave it to rest, covered, for 30 minutes. This short rest lets the flour absorb the water fully before you add anything else.
- Add the starter and salt. Add the active sourdough starter and the fine sea salt to the rested dough. Squeeze and fold the dough over itself until both are fully incorporated, around 3 to 4 minutes of working it by hand. Add the olive oil last and work it in the same way. The dough will feel slightly slick at first, but it will come together.
- Develop the dough. Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature (aim for around 24°C if you can) for 1 hour. During this time, perform 3 sets of coil folds, roughly 20 minutes apart. To coil fold, wet your hands, slide them under the dough, lift the centre up and let the sides fold down underneath. Rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat. Do this 4 times per set. After the third set, the dough should feel noticeably more structured and hold its shape better.
- Divide and refrigerate. After the folds are done and the dough has had its full room-temperature rest, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into two equal pieces (around 290g each). Shape each piece loosely into a ball by tucking the edges underneath, then place them in lightly oiled containers or small bowls covered with cling film. Refrigerate overnight, or for at least 10 hours. This is where most of the fermentation and flavour development happens.
Why this works
The overnight cold ferment slows everything down and gives the naturally occurring acids in the starter more time to develop without the dough over-fermenting. The result is a base with real flavour and good structure. Lower temperatures also mean the dough stays firm enough to handle cleanly the next day, which makes shaping significantly easier in warm August kitchens.
INTO THE OVEN
- Roast the figs. About an hour before you want to bake, preheat your oven to its highest setting (250°C fan if you have it) with a pizza stone or heavy baking tray inside. Toss the halved figs in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, spread them cut-side up on a lined tray, and roast for 8 to 10 minutes until they are soft and caramelised at the edges. Set them aside to cool slightly.
- Warm the dough balls. Pull the dough balls out of the fridge and leave them on the counter, still covered, for at least 45 minutes to an hour. In summer the kitchen is usually warm enough that they relax fairly quickly. You are looking for them to feel puffy and soft, not cold and tight. If they spring back aggressively when you press them, give them more time.
- Shape the bases. Flour your work surface generously with semolina or plain flour. Take one dough ball and press it out from the centre with your fingertips, working outward in a circular motion and leaving a slightly thicker edge for the crust. Then use the backs of your hands to gently stretch it out to roughly 28 to 30 centimetres. Do not use a rolling pin; you will knock out all the gas and flatten the crust structure.
- Top the pizza. Lay the stretched base on a well-floured pizza peel or the back of a flat baking tray. Scatter the torn mozzarella across the base, leaving the edge clear. Add the gorgonzola pieces and then arrange the roasted fig halves over the top. Season lightly with black pepper. Hold the prosciutto back for now.
- Bake. Slide the pizza carefully onto your preheated stone or tray. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until the crust is deeply blistered, the cheese is bubbling and the base has taken on good colour. About 2 minutes before the end, drape the prosciutto slices over the top. They will crisp up beautifully in the residual heat without burning.
- Finish and serve. Pull the pizza from the oven and immediately scatter a small handful of rocket over the top (it wilts just enough from the heat to be perfect). Drizzle with honey, add a final crack of black pepper if you like, and eat it straight away. Repeat with the second dough ball.
Adjusting the batch size or tweaking the flour ratio? Use the free DoughRise Baker's Percentages Calculator to scale this recipe up or down accurately without losing the balance of the dough.
Happy baking! Find everything you need at doughrise.store
Photo by Daniel Prado on Unsplash
