100% Stone Milled Flour Pizza Dough Recipe with Cairnspring Mills

Plus: Why do we care about stone-milled flour anyway?

Jan 10, 2025

Pizza Friends, hello! And happy Friday. Let’s get straight to it 🍕🍕

Last March, I made a pizza inspired by Ines Glaser’s “pizza salad detox” series and shared it here. I made the dough using 100% stone-milled flour, topped it with brie and crème fraîche, and piled it high with lightly dressed bitter greens out of the oven:

It fit Ine’s campaign to deliver “a strict diet of indulgence and healthy eating,” and while I included a recipe for the toppings here, I promised to share the dough recipe in the weeks ahead. Well, here it is, only 10 months later.

The recipe uses 100% Cairnspring Mills flour, which a friend introduced me to several years ago via a bag of their Trailblazer bread flour, the flour used by Tartine and many other renowned bakeries. Upon trying and loving it, I reached out to Cairnspring Mills about which of their flours might be good for pizza, and I heard back immediately from their marketing manager Meech Crowley, who said:

“For pizza, we find that Glacier Peak blends beautifully at an 80/20 ratio with a weaker flour, like our Sequoia. Glacier Peak is the lighter, more sifted sibling to our beloved Trailblazer bread flour.”

Using Meech’s ratio, I made the Neapolitanish Pizza Dough recipe from Pizza Night, and it worked perfectly, creating a light, crisp, airy crust with beautiful color and aroma, not always an easy feat with stone-milled flours. I’ve linked to the recipe below, which includes tips for using stone-milled flours from other mills, which might have you asking: Why do we care about stone-milled flour anyway? I’ve included some notes below.

As always, let me know if you have any questions 🍕🍕🥗🥗

Stone-Milled Flour: Why Do We Care?

Often and especially this time of year, people email me asking if the bread flour or all-purpose flour in my recipes can be replaced with whole wheat flour. Yes, I always say, but keep in mind a few things, namely that due to the presence of bran in whole wheat flour, which cuts through gluten, a dough made with a high proportion of whole wheat flour may create a bread or pizza that is heavy and dense in texture.

Another factor to consider is the actual type of whole wheat flour to use. If you’re looking to make a more nutritious pizza dough, which is typically the goal when using whole wheat flour, you may want to look beyond your supermarket’s flour aisle.

Why? Because commercial whole wheat flour isn’t necessarily more nutritious than commercial white flour due to the way flour is milled. Most commercial flour on the market is made from wheat that has been roller milled, meaning a roller mill has separated the wheat kernel into three parts: the endosperm, germ, and bran. White flour is made from the endosperm. Commercial whole wheat flour is made from a mix of the endosperm, germ, and the bran, but producing it entails separating the kernel into its three parts first, then adding the germ and the bran back in various proportions. Much research shows that as soon as the wheat kernel is separated into the various parts, much of the nutritional value is lost.

What’s the alternative? Stone-milled flour, which is made from wheat that passes through a stone mill, the process of which not only keeps the endosperm, bran, and germ together but also preserves more of the bran and the germ, which is where many of the nutrients, antioxidants, oils, and flavors are stored. Using small amounts of these freshly milled flour in your pizza (and bread) recipes will provide so much more by way of flavor and aroma than commercial whole wheat flour without compromising their texture.

As noted above, I love Cairnspring Mills flours but there are many wonderful mills out there — a few others I love include Anson Mills, Community Grains, and Red Tail Grains. Read more about Cairnspring Mills’ process here.

The Video: Stone-Milled Flour Pizza Dough + Pizza

In this video I make a variation of the Neapolitan-ish pizza dough recipe from Pizza Night using two flour from Cairnspring Mills: Glacier Peak Bread Flour and Sequoia All-Purpose (on the right):

The Recipe: Kale + Crème Fraîche Pizza

Watch the video above for guidance on making the dough (as well as stretching and baking it).

For this recipe you’ll need kale, crème fraîche, crushed red pepper flakes, garlic, extra-virgin olive oil, flaky sea salt, and Parmigiano Reggiano:

You’ll also need some dough:

Turn the dough out into a DoughMate or other lidded vessel:

Let proof at room temperature:

Then turn out onto a work surface:

Stretch into a round:

Toss the kale with olive oil and salt:

Then top the pizza as follows: créme fraîche, garlic, crushed red pepper flakes, extra-virgin olive oil, dressed kale:

Bake on a preheated Baking Steel or pizza stone at 550ºF convection roast or your oven’s hottest setting for 4 to 5 minutes (or until browned to your liking). See recipe if making dough in an outdoor oven. Shave parmesan over the top out of the oven: