Mellow Mushroom Pizza Dough

While looking through a Reddit page for my home town I came across a thread about pizza where someone posted a link to a copycat recipe for Mellow Mushroom pizza dough.  It's been a long time since I lived in Lexington and I can't remember if Mellow Mushroom was around at that time or if I ever ate there, but everyone seemed to rave about the crust on the thread so I decided to give it a try.

The recipe can be found here.  I looked up ingredient weights on the internet to convert the recipe  into bakers percentages and came up with this...

1 1/2 cups hot water     338 grams     74%
2 1/2 Tb molasses         54 grams       12%
1 TB Olive oil               14 grams       3%
2 packets IDY               16 grams       3.5%
3 1/2 cups bread flour  455 grams     100%
2 ts salt (table)              12 grams       2.6%

I based the weight of the flour on a site that gave weights of flour using various methods, the greatest weight given used the dip and sweep method.  When I actually made the recipe the actual weight 3.5 cups flour measured with that method was 487 grams.  The only other changes I made were to cut the yeast amount in half as I planned to cold ferment the dough, I used cold water instead of hot since I feared the 15 minute knead time would overheat the dough in the mixer and kill the yeast and I cut down the molasses to 45 grams since what I had was old and somewhat dehydrated.  After making this recipe I looked online and found a significant range of weights given for the same measure of several of the ingredients, but this is my starting point.

First I mixed the water, molasses and olive oil and mixed them together before adding the yeast.  I'd probably let the yeast hydrate in the water/molasses next time before adding the oil.  I them measured out the flour and salt, added them to the work bowl of the stand mixer, attached the hook and started the machine.  After everything was mixed together it was clear that the dough was too slack, I had to add a few spoonfuls of extra flour to the bowl in order to get a workable dough.  I let the dough knead on low to medium speed for the 15 minutes indicated in the recipe, at the end I had a very smooth ball of dough with a finished temp of 77°f.  The dough ball was rounded, put in an oiled bowl and placed int he refrigerator to cold ferment.  The next day I rounded the dough again to allow carbon dioxide to escape and redistribute the yeast and put it back in the refrigerator for another day.

Two days later it was time to make pizza!  I divided the dough in half, rounded both dough balls and put one out on the counter to rest for 2 hours so it could come up to room temperature.  Trying to use dough from the refrigerator before it's had a chance to warm up will result in large bubbles forming during baking.  The dough was very easy to work with, I was able to easily stretch it out without any tears and minimal shrink back after it was formed.  I placed the skin of a piece of parchment on which I had sprinkled corn meal, sprayed the top with olive oil and sprinkled on some romano cheese.  The recipe calls for parmesan crumbs, but I didn't have any.  I then dressed simply with pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni with a final dusting of romano cheese on the top.  The pizza was baked on a baking steel in an oven that had been preheated for about 30 minutes.

After removing from the oven the crust rim was sprayed with olive oil, the recipe calls for brushing it with garlic butter but I didn't have any on hand.

I was pretty happy with the recipe, but plan on making some changes for the next iteration.  Even with the lowered amount of molasses the flavor was pronounced, that may just be because what I had in the pantry was old and concentrated.  Next time I plan on using a new bottle and cutting down the amount to 5% of the flour weight.  I also plan on cutting down the total hydration (water + molasses + oil) to about 70% and then figure out where to go from there.

EDIT 4/27/17

I've been playing around with the dough formula a bit, the current one I'm using is

Bread Flour  100.00% 500
Water           62.20% 311
Molasses      5.00% 25
Yeast (IDY)  1.60% 8
EVOO          2.80% 14
Salt               2.40% 12

This formula is for same day use (2 hour warm ferment), I find that letting the dough cold ferment in the refrigerator for a couple of days yields a final product that's easier to stretch, has better texture and flavor. When I go this route I cut the yeast down to 5-6 grams (1-1.2% flour weight). I try to keep total hydration (water + molasses + EVOO) to 70%.