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Recipe
7 min read
Sourdough Pizza with Roasted Pumpkin, Crispy Sage & Fontina: The Autumn Bake That Earns Its Place on the Table
A rich autumn sourdough pizza with roasted pumpkin, crispy sage and melted Fontina. Real flavour, proper technique, and a base worth waiting for.
Top view of a sliced gourmet pizza with vegetables on a wooden board, perfect for food photography.There is something about roasted pumpkin in a hot oven that fills a kitchen in a way no other vegetable quite manages , sweet, nutty, a little caramelised at the edges, with that warm autumn smell that makes you want to stay indoors and do nothing urgent. Put it on a sourdough pizza base with bubbling Fontina and a handful of sage leaves fried in brown butter, and honestly, you have got something worth clearing your Friday evening for.
This is one of those recipes that feels seasonal in the best possible way. It is not trying to be a margherita. The pumpkin is the main event, the Fontina melts into something deeply savoury and almost nutty, and the sage adds a little crunch and bitterness that keeps the whole thing from feeling heavy. The sourdough base does what it does best: open, slightly chewy, with enough char on the underside to hold its own against robust toppings. This is proper autumn baking, the kind that makes September feel like a good place to be.
Dough
- 300g strong white bread flour (or 00 pizza flour)
- 195g water (room temperature, 65% hydration)
- 75g active sourdough starter (at or just past peak)
- 7g (1¼ tsp) fine sea salt
- 10g (2 tsp) extra virgin olive oil
Roasted Pumpkin
- 400g pumpkin or Crown Prince squash, peeled and cut into 1–2cm cubes
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
- Salt and black pepper to taste
Toppings
- 180g Fontina, grated or torn (substitute Taleggio if unavailable)
- 60g whole-milk mozzarella, torn
- 20 fresh sage leaves
- 30g unsalted butter
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (for drizzling)
- Flaky sea salt, to finish
- Black pepper, to finish
Baker's Tips
- Roast the pumpkin the day before if you can. It firms up a little overnight in the fridge, which means it holds its shape better on the pizza and does not release too much moisture onto your base during baking.
- Fontina can vary quite a bit by brand. Look for Val d'Aosta Fontina DOP if you can find it at a good deli or market. It melts beautifully and has a depth that supermarket versions sometimes lack.
- If you are finding the dough bounces back when you stretch it, cover it and leave it for 10 minutes. Letting the gluten relax is all it needs. If you keep getting caught out by that kind of thing, the DoughRise Coach is genuinely useful for those moments , you can send a message at 10pm when your dough is misbehaving and get an actual answer instead of trawling through forum threads.
METHOD
- Mix the dough. Combine the flour, water, and active starter in a large bowl. Mix until no dry flour remains, then add the salt and olive oil. Work them in with your hands until the dough feels cohesive and a little smooth. It should be moderately stiff but not tight. Cover and leave to rest for 30 minutes.
- Build the dough structure. Over the next 2 hours, perform 4 sets of coil folds at roughly 30-minute intervals. Wet your hands, slide them under the dough, lift the centre, and let the ends fold underneath. Rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat four times per set. After the final fold the dough should feel noticeably more elastic and hold its shape when you leave it in the bowl.
- Bulk ferment at room temperature. Leave the dough covered at a comfortable room temperature (around 20–22°C is ideal in autumn) until it has grown by 50–70% and looks airy. Depending on how active your starter is and how warm your kitchen is, this will take somewhere between 4 and 6 hours. Cooler kitchens take longer, which is fine. September kitchens in London can swing quite a bit, so keep an eye on it rather than going purely by the clock.
Why coil folds work so well for pizza dough
Coil folds build strength progressively without deflating the gas already developing in the dough. For a moderately hydrated pizza dough like this one, they encourage an open interior structure while also giving the base enough body to handle toppings without going soggy. By the end of your four sets, you are essentially training the dough rather than forcing it.
- Divide and ball. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into two equal pieces (roughly 290g each). Shape each piece into a tight ball by folding the edges under and rolling it against the surface until the top is taut. Place the dough balls into a lightly oiled container or on a floured tray, cover, and refrigerate overnight or for up to 24 hours. This cold rest relaxes the dough significantly and makes stretching much easier.
- Roast the pumpkin. While the dough is in its final rest (or the day before), preheat your oven to 220°C fan. Toss the pumpkin cubes with olive oil, chilli flakes, salt and pepper, and spread them on a baking tray in a single layer. Roast for 20–25 minutes until the edges are catching colour and the flesh is tender. Set aside to cool. The slight caramelisation is what you are after here.
- Fry the sage. Melt the butter in a small pan over medium heat. Once it starts to foam and smell nutty, add the sage leaves and fry for 60–90 seconds until crisp. Lift them out with a slotted spoon onto kitchen paper. Keep the brown butter in the pan , you will drizzle it over the finished pizza.
INTO THE OVEN
- Preheat your baking surface. Place a pizza stone, steel, or heavy baking tray in the oven and preheat to your oven's maximum temperature , 250°C or as high as it goes , for at least 45 minutes. You want that surface genuinely hot before anything goes near it. If you have a thermometer, aim for at least 280°C on the stone surface.
- Remove dough from the fridge. Take the dough balls out 45–60 minutes before you plan to bake. They need to come up to room temperature so they stretch easily without tearing. Cold dough fights you. Room-temperature dough gives you about 10 minutes to work with it before it starts to relax again.
- Stretch the base. Flour your work surface and gently press the dough ball flat with your fingertips, working from the centre outward and leaving a 1–2cm rim untouched. Lift the dough and let gravity help, working around the edge. Aim for a roughly 28–30cm circle. If it springs back, rest it for 5–10 minutes covered, then try again.
- Top the pizza. Lay the stretched base on a floured peel or a piece of baking parchment. Scatter over half the Fontina, then add half the roasted pumpkin pieces, then the torn mozzarella. Season lightly with black pepper. Keep the toppings away from the outer rim , that edge needs space to puff and blister.
- Bake. Slide the pizza onto the hot stone and bake for 10–13 minutes, until the crust is deeply golden with dark spots, the cheese is bubbling and just starting to colour, and the base sounds hollow when you tap the rim. Every oven is different, so start checking at 10 minutes.
- Finish and serve. Slide the pizza onto a board and immediately arrange the crispy sage leaves over the top. Drizzle with the reserved brown butter and a little extra virgin olive oil. Finish with flaky salt. Eat it straight away , this one does not benefit from sitting.
Want to dial in this recipe for a different batch size or flour? Use the free DoughRise Baker's Percentages Calculator to scale the dough precisely without any guesswork.
Happy baking! Find everything you need at doughrise.store
Photo by Team Picsfast on Pexels
