Apple, Bacon & Balsamic Caramelised Onion are the perfect match in this easy homemade sourdough pizza recipe. If you’ve been following the sourdough trend and have your own sourdough starter at home, check out the simple recipe for sourdough discard pizza dough below. No sourdough starter? We recommend this pizza dough recipe by Taste.  Want to speed things up? Simply purchase a pre-made pizza base from your local supermarket!

This recipe was developed in collaboration with Essteele: beautiful cookware made in Italy.

Makes 2 x 22cm thin crust pizzas

Ingredients

For the sourdough pizza base

1 cup sourdough starter (unfed or discard)
1/2 cup warm water
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp instant/dry yeast. If you’re short on time, you can double this as it will help the dough to rise faster.

Note: no sourdough starter? We recommend this recipe.

For the topping

2 Red Rich Fruits Apples (we’ve used Pink Lady), skin-on, cored & finely diced
2 small brown onions, halved then thinly sliced
1 1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp olive oil, plus olive oil spray
4 rashers bacon, diced
100g goats cheese
1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 handful fresh baby spinach
Salt & pepper

Method

For the pizza dough

1. Add dough ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix to combine, then knead with the dough hook for 7 minutes. The dough is ready when it wraps itself around the hook and cleans the side of the bowl.

2. Remove the dough from the bowl, spray the bowl with olive oil spray, then return the dough to the bowl and cover it with cling film. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until doubled in size. This will take between 2-4 hours depending on temperature and the amount of yeast.

3. Once doubled in size, split the dough in half, then shape the halves into two round discs approx 22cm in diameter. Place the two discs on a sheet of baking paper, cover with a clean tea towel, and leave to rest while you prepare the toppings.

For the topping:

4. Preheat oven to 230 degrees celsius (fan-forced). Pizza stones preheated with the oven are an excellent way to get your pizza bases nice and crispy, but if you don’t have a pizza stone, a simple trick is to use a heavy-based oven-proof frying pan instead (we’ve used an Essteele Per Sempre 26cm Stainless Steele Skillet).

5. Heat 1Tbsp olive oil in a medium-sized frying pan (we’ve used an Essteele Per Salute 28” non-stick Skillet) over low heat, then add in the onions. Leave to caramelise in the oil, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 mins.

6. Meanwhile, place 1/2 tbsp olive oil in a second frying pan (we’ve used an Essteele Per Salute 20” non-stick Skillet), then fry the bacon pieces in the oil over medium heat until nicely browned. Spoon the bacon pieces into a bowl and set aside; then toss the apple pieces into the skillet for 2-3 minutes to soften before removing from the heat.

7. By this stage the onions in the first frying pan should be well-softened. Add the balsamic vinegar and honey to the onions, season with salt and pepper, and cook for an additional 2 to 3 minutes or until the mixture is syrupy.

Assemble the pizzas:

8. Once the oven is preheated, carefully remove the pizza pan from the oven (take care as it will be piping hot!), and generously spray it with olive oil.

9. Working with one pizza round at a time, gently press the edges outward then transfer it to your preheated pizza pan. Drizzle with olive oil, then place the pizza pan in the oven for 7 mins to part-cook the pizza base. After 7 mins, remove from the oven, then layer the pizza base with half the grated mozzarella, bacon, apple, goats cheese and onion mixture, and top with a sprig of thyme. Return it to the oven for a further 5-7 mins, or until the cheese is bubbling and the pizza base is golden brown.

10. If you’re using just the one skillet to cook the pizza base, repeat the process with the second pizza base and remaining pizza toppings.

11. Slice and scatter with baby spinach leaves to serve.