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Recipe
7 min read
Sourdough Pizza with Roasted Butternut Squash, Sage Brown Butter & Taleggio: The Autumn Bake That Smells Like the Season
A rich, seasonal sourdough pizza with roasted butternut squash, sage brown butter and melted Taleggio. The ultimate autumn flatbread for home bakers.
Photo by Ege Meşe on UnsplashThe first time I made this, the kitchen smelled so good that my flatmate wandered in from the other room and just stood there, not saying anything, waiting. Roasted squash, sage crisping in browned butter, that low funky warmth of melting Taleggio , it is the kind of combination that makes September feel like a reward rather than an ending. This is the sourdough pizza I have been making on Friday evenings ever since the nights started drawing in, and it is proper autumn food: rich, a bit indulgent, and worth every bit of planning ahead.
What sets this apart from your standard marg is the layering. You roast the squash first until it caramelises at the edges, then brown the butter with fresh sage until the kitchen smells like an Italian restaurant in October. That goes on the base instead of a tomato sauce, Taleggio melts over the top, and you finish with a few sage leaves that crisp up in the oven. The sourdough base brings that subtle tang which cuts right through the richness of the cheese and butter. It is a genuinely special pizza, and it is not complicated once you have your dough ready.
The Dough
- 300g strong white bread flour (or 00 pizza flour)
- 75g active sourdough starter (at peak, 100% hydration)
- 195g water, room temperature
- 7g (1¼ tsp) fine sea salt
- 10g (2 tsp) extra virgin olive oil
Roasted Butternut Squash
- 400g butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- Flaky sea salt and black pepper
Sage Brown Butter
- 60g unsalted butter
- 12 fresh sage leaves
- 1 small garlic clove, finely grated
- Pinch of fine sea salt
Toppings
- 200g Taleggio, rind removed, torn into rough chunks
- 30g Parmesan, finely grated
- Extra sage leaves for finishing
- Chilli flakes, to serve (optional)
Baker's Tips
- Do not skip resting the dough balls at room temperature for a full hour before stretching. Cooler dough resists stretching and tears more easily, and autumn kitchen temperatures will make this more noticeable than in summer. Give it time.
- Roast the squash the day before if you are short on time. Store it in the fridge overnight and bring it back to room temperature before it goes on the pizza, so it does not drop the base temperature when it hits the hot stone.
- If you find yourself baking these pizzas regularly, DoughRise Pro lets you save your formula with all the ratios locked in, so you can scale it up to four or six balls for a bigger crowd without doing the maths again each time. The bake history is genuinely useful when you want to tweak hydration across different seasons.
METHOD
- Mix the dough. Combine the flour and water in a large bowl and mix until no dry flour remains. Leave to rest for 30 minutes. Add the starter, olive oil and salt, and work them in by squeezing the dough through your fingers until fully incorporated. The dough will feel a bit ragged at first , that is fine. Cover the bowl and leave at room temperature.
- Build the structure. Over the next 2 hours, perform four sets of coil folds, spaced roughly 30 minutes apart. To coil fold: wet your hands, reach under the dough, lift the centre up and let both ends fold down underneath. Rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat. Do this four times per set. After the final set, the dough should feel noticeably stronger and smoother, and hold its shape when you leave it in the bowl.
- Bulk ferment at room temperature. Leave the dough to continue fermenting, covered, for a further 3–4 hours. In an average autumn kitchen sitting around 19–21°C, this window works well. You are looking for the dough to have increased in volume by roughly 50–60%, feel airy and jiggly when you shake the bowl, and show small bubbles across the surface and at the edges. Autumn kitchens can run a couple of degrees cooler than summer ones, so do not be surprised if it takes closer to the longer end of that range.
- Divide and ball up. Tip the dough gently onto an unfloured surface. Divide it into two equal pieces (around 290g each). Shape each piece into a tight ball using a bench scraper to drag it towards you across the surface, building surface tension. Place each ball into a lightly oiled container or on a lightly oiled tray, cover with cling film or a damp cloth, and leave to rest at room temperature for 1 hour. If you want to bake the following evening, pop them in the fridge now and pull them out 2 hours before you need them.
- Roast the squash. While the dough balls rest, heat your oven to 220°C (fan 200°C). Toss the squash cubes in olive oil, smoked paprika, salt and pepper, spread on a baking tray in a single layer and roast for 25–30 minutes until golden and caramelised at the edges. Set aside to cool slightly.
- Make the sage brown butter. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Once it starts to foam, add the sage leaves and let them fry for about 60–90 seconds until crisp. Remove the sage leaves with a fork and set aside on kitchen paper. Continue cooking the butter, swirling regularly, until it turns a nutty amber colour and smells like hazelnuts. Remove from the heat immediately, stir in the grated garlic and a pinch of salt, and pour into a small bowl. The garlic will cook gently in the residual heat.
- Preheat your baking surface. Place a pizza stone or heavy baking tray in the oven and crank it as high as it will go , ideally 260–280°C (or as high as your oven allows). Let it preheat for at least 45 minutes. The hotter the surface, the better the base. Do not rush this.
- Stretch the dough. Lightly flour your work surface and a dough ball. Using your fingers, press from the centre outwards, leaving a thicker border for the crust. Once it is roughly 25cm across, drape the dough over your knuckles and gently stretch it wider by rotating and letting gravity do some of the work. Aim for around 28–30cm. If it springs back stubbornly, leave it to relax for 5 minutes and try again , do not force it.
- Assemble and bake. Lay the stretched base on a lightly floured pizza peel or the back of a flat baking tray. Brush the surface generously with the sage brown butter, leaving the border bare. Scatter the roasted squash across the base, then distribute the Taleggio chunks evenly and finish with the grated Parmesan. Slide onto the hot stone and bake for 8–11 minutes until the crust is deeply blistered and the cheese is bubbling and bronze in patches. Remove from the oven, scatter the reserved crispy sage leaves over the top, and add chilli flakes if you like a bit of heat.
- Rest briefly, then eat. Give it 2 minutes before you slice it , the Taleggio needs a moment to settle or it will slide straight off. Repeat with the second dough ball.
Why this works
The coil fold technique builds tension in the dough without degassing it, which is exactly what you want for a pizza base. Each fold aligns the developing structure and helps the dough hold onto the carbon dioxide produced during fermentation, giving you a base that is strong enough to stretch thin without tearing but still open and airy when it bakes. Think of each fold as tightening a spring gradually, rather than all at once.
INTO THE OVEN
Scaling this up for a bigger group? Use the free DoughRise Baker's Percentages Calculator to adjust the dough quantities precisely for however many pizzas you need.
Happy baking! Find everything you need at doughrise.store
