UPDATE: Before trying this recipe, read the comments below this post! A couple Mellow Mushroom employees have chimed in with some great tips! Thanks to everyone who has made this and taken the time to comment.
Have you ever been to Mellow Mushroom? They opened one near us a couple years ago and it has quickly become our favorite pizza joint. Not that we eat out frequently, but when we do, Mellow Mushroom is one of our top picks. We've never had a pizza there we didn't absolutely LOVE.
But what really makes their pizza, and you know this if you've been there, is their amazing crust. The texture is divine. The taste is wonderful. There is NO crust avoiding at Mellow Mushroom. Even crust discarders will eat their crust.
Every time we go there, without fail, I'll end up whining to my husband how "I wish I could make a crust like this at home!" Until now. Because after our last visit there, I became determined to find a similar enough pizza crust recipe that I can make at home.
And by golly--I've really got it! I think I've got it! {That's a My Fair Lady reference for you. Your Friday is now complete. You're welcome.}
I came home and searched and Googled, I read blogs and forums and scoured Pinterest. I sifted through obscure parts of the internets, reading strange posts by baking scientists. I baked multiple pizzas, tweaking the recipes each time. Finally, I came up with a crust that, while {probably} not the exact recipe Mellow Mushroom uses, it's close enough that I'm HAPPY!
My husband is also very HAPPY these days. Thanks to my new pizza crust.
It's easy, it's simple, but I learned so much that I went from the girl who used a blah recipe without questions to knowing tons of facts and info about how to really make pizza crust. It's not complicated, but there are a few tricks...
I'll get to the Holy Shiitake copycat later, that's just toppings. First, let's look at what I learned about crust during my studies....
To make fantastic pizza crust at home:
- Preheat your oven AND your pizza stone {you NEED a pizza stone} to 550 degrees at least an hour before baking. Yes, 550! That's as high as my oven goes, but oh we go there. No we didn't? Yes we did!
- Cornmeal is a must. Of course! Why did I never think of this before? All the restaurants use it. It helps avoid using too much flour and makes your crust a little more crunchy on the outside. We want this. You'll roll your pizza dough out on a lightly floured, but heavily cornmealed, surface. If you don't have a pizza peel, I recommend rolling out your pizza dough onto parchment paper. Don't use wax paper, you'll burn down your house.
- Skip the sugar! Word on the street is Mellow Mushroom uses molasses--yes, molasses!--in place of any sugar. I've tried this, and it's delicious. Why granny, I never knew you could be like this in the kitchen--you saucy minx!
- Make your crust like so:
First, pour 1 1/2 cups of hot water into your mixer bowl, add 2 tablespoons of molasses and stir it in.
TIP: Try using spring water instead of tap, as Mellow Mushroom says they do. I haven't noticed a difference, but if you really want to copycat MM, then go ahead and try.
Between the metal bowl and the molasses, your water should cool quickly enough to sprinkle in your yeast. Think bath water temperature, around 100 degrees, you don't want it too hot, that will kill your yeast. Cooler is better than too hot, but warm is best.
Sprinkle in your yeast
TIP: I even go so far as to stir it gently in to make sure it all gets wet.
TIP: Don't smell molasses right out of the jar. Especially if you're pregnant. I love molasses in cookies and even pizza, but right out of the jar it smells like wet dog. You don't want to have to start a whole new batch of dough because you tossed your cookies into the first one.
In 5-10 minutes, you'll have a delicious smelling puff ball of yeast.
Meanwhile, mix together 3 1/2 cups flour with 2 teaspoons of salt.
TIP: You don't want to just dump salt into your yeast mixture, as salt kills yeast when it has direct contact. It's actually important to dilute it into the flour first.
Go ahead and dump your flour and salt mix into the yeast mixture, then add 1 tablespoon olive oil.
See? That's really all very simple.
Turn your mixer on stir with the dough hook and let it knead your dough for about 5 minutes.
The dough will get itself all worked up. Sheesh, you'd think you started talking politics with it or something.
It should be sticky, but if it's toosticky to even handle then go ahead and mix in another 1/4 cup of flour and try again.
Remove it from the bowl, form into a ball, and place it into a greased, lightly floured bowl. Cover loosely with plastic wrap.
At this point you can place it in the fridge to rise over the course of several hours, a great choice if you want to make your crust in the morning. Or, leave it out covered in a dark warm place for a couple hours.
This dough makes one large pizza, two medium pizzas, or 4-6 personal pizzas. Divide it as you wish.
Now let's talk baking...
Again, you want to roll your pizza dough out with cornmeal {and maybe a little flour, and flour your hands a tad}.
But when I say "roll it out" I mean, pick that ball of dough up and let gravity work for you. Turn the dough in your hands like you would a steering wheel.
You can do thin or thick crust, and I wanted to show you a few options you have...
Here, I preheated my pizza stone high up in the oven, rolled the crust pretty thin, and turned on the broiler right after putting my pizza in.
For this pizza, the Holy Shiitake copycat, I kept my stone lower in the oven, did a pretty thick crust, and you can see the result.
You can do whatever you think you'd like best. Broiler or no broiler? Broiling gets a darker, blackened crust in spots. Thin or thick crust is a preference thing. Both methods had lovely texture.
BEFORE baking your pizza, however, brush the crust with a melted garlic butter. This is, supposedly, what is done at Mellow Mushroom.
If you don't have a pizza peel, the parchment paper works great for easy sliding on and off the pizza stone. For serving, the baked pizza should come off your parchment paper just fine. If you're having the Queen of England over for dinner, you don't want to serve her pizza directly off the parchment paper, do you?
{WARNING: After a commenter mentioned her parchment paper catching on fire, I'd recommend cutting the paper very close to the pizza's edge so there is no excess to burn as well as keeping a VERY close eye on the pizza while cooking. Of course, a pizza peel would be the best thing to avoid fires altogether!}
Bake at 550 degrees for 5-7 minutes, keeping a close eye on it. The beauty of a preheated pizza stone is that your pizza's center will be just as well baked as the crust.
Another last minute Mellow Mushroom touch, sprinkled that crust with parmesan right when it comes out of the oven.
This crust has been WONDERFUL for us! Between the molasses and the baking methods I've learned, we get that perfect mix of chewy & crunchy crust that is still soft on the inside and has a rich taste. I'll never try another crust recipe again I think. The molasses adds an extra sumpthin' to the taste as well, for sure, while not tasting molassesy.
It tastes very much like Mellow Mushroom's pizza, but even if you've never been there, I think this crust recipe would be a hit for any family. The Queen of England might even like it. Just don't serve hers on parchment paper.
Now, since I talked up Mellow Mushroom so much, I'll share our homemade version of our very favorite pizza from MM: their "Holy Shiitake" pizza!
Once my dough was formed, I brushed it with olive oil and truffle oil, and topped it withmozzarellaand shredded romano cheese. Then I sprinkled on a liberal amount of sliced baby bella mushrooms {Mellow Mushroom uses a mushroom variety but they're pricey so I just picked up a pack of sliced baby bellas}, caramelized red onion, and pre-cooked bacon. {The MM menu doesn't include bacon, but the waiters always suggest it as an add-on and it's very yummy, so I added it at home.}
I baked it the same, though lower in the oven and no broiler. Of course, the crust was brushed with garlic butter before and sprinkled with parmesan after baking.
The finishing touches include a drizzle of garlic aioli and a sprinkling of chives!
Not only was this verysimilar to Mellow Mushroom's Holy Shiitake pizza, some family members who helped us eat it said it was the best pizza they've ever had. Well, shoot!
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Pizza Crust Recipe - A Mellow Mushroom Copycat
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups hot water (optional, use spring water)
2 Tbsp molasses
2 packets of active yeast
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp olive oil
cornmeal
melted butter with garlic
parmesan cheese crumbs
Directions:
1. Place hot water in mixer bowl and stir in molasses. Once cooled to warm, sprinkle on yeast and gently stir it in. Let sit 10 minutes.
2. Mix flour and salt together. Add flour mix and olive oil to yeast mixture.
3. Using a dough hook, run mixer on low/stir for 5 minutes.
4. Form dough into ball and place in a lightly greased bowl, sprinkle with flour. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and kitchen towel, let rise in fridge over several hours or on counter top for 2 hours, or until doubled.
5. Preheat oven to 550 degrees with pizza stone, hold temperature at least 30 minutes before baking pizza.
6. Form dough into pizza crust, top as desired. Brush crust with garlic butter. Slide onto preheated pizza stone, bake 5-7 minutes or until done, using oven on bake or broil setting, as desired. Sprinkle crust withparmesancheese immediately after removing from oven.
Toppings for a "Holy Shiitake" copycat:
- sliced mushrooms (baby bellas, shiitake, or whatever gets your goat)
- caramelized onions
- pre-cooked bacon, chopped
- olive oil
- white truffle oil (buy this, it's so worth it)
- garlic aioli (added after baking)
- chives, chopped (added after baking)
Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we have! Though we will still frequent our local Mellow Mushroom, they have amazing pizzas and drinks. Our other favorite pies of their's include the Philosopher's Pie, the Red Skin Potato Pie, and the Magical Mystery Tour. Everything there is delish!
Thanks for visiting today. Happy homemade pizza making!
Cheers,
Heather
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This week at my family blog, Last Day Ago:
