Trying to recreate the stuffed spinach mushroom at Zachary's

[jcg]

I'm a newbie at pizza making and just joined the forum. For my first attempt I'm planning on making the spinach mushroom stuffed pizza that is famous at Zachary's in Berkeley, CA (my favorite pizza). I found what claims to be a recipe for their pizza at the link below, but was wondering if anyone on these forums has tried this recipe or has another one that recreates Zachary's pizza. I got one of their pizza's and deconstructed the layers as:

crushed tomato sauce
mozzarella cheese
top crust??
thin sliced fresh mushrooms
fresh spinach
provolone cheese
thin sliced fresh mushrooms
fresh spinach
provolone cheese
bottom crust

http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2008/03/secrets-of-zach.html

Anyways I'm wondering how this crust recipe compares to Deven's DD recipe that gets an excellent rating. Any help / tips appreciated.

jcg

[jcg]

So nobody from the San Francisco Bay Area on these boards??? I made my first DD pizza last night, but wanted to go with a tried and true recipe, so after reading through the whole "Malnati Deep Dish with Semolina" thread I went with that recipe. You can see my 3 posts at the link below (page 23, post #457-#459).

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6480.440.html

The crust was great but nothing like Zachary's, so next I'm going to try to get closer to theirs which I know doesn't have any semolina in it and I used 20% for the above recipe. From the link in my post above we know they are making a 10" pizza with dough thickness of .125, and the ingredients for the dough are:

16 oz. flour
8 oz. warm water
1.5 teaspoons instant dry yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons olive oil

So using the dough calculator and trying to get the same numbers as above the best I can do is below. I had stuffed pizza clicked and set to 33%, bowl residue 0%, and hydration 50%. I had to set the pan size to 12" (vs the article saying it was a 10" pizza) to get the flour/water anywhere near 16oz/8oz.

Flour (100%):    480.99 g  |  16.97 oz | 1.06 lbs
Water (50%):    240.49 g  |  8.48 oz | 0.53 lbs
IDY (1.25%):    6.01 g | 0.21 oz | 0.01 lbs | 2 tsp | 0.67 tbsp
Salt (2%):    9.62 g | 0.34 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2 tsp | 0.67 tbsp
Olive Oil (2%):    9.62 g | 0.34 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2.14 tsp | 0.71 tbsp
Sugar (1.75%):    8.42 g | 0.3 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2.11 tsp | 0.7 tbsp
Total (157%):   755.15 g | 26.64 oz | 1.66 lbs | TF = 0.125
Single Inner Ball:   567.78 g | 20.03 oz | 1.25 lbs
Single Outer Ball:   187.37 g | 6.61 oz | 0.41 lbs

Since I just made a pizza last night I probably won't make another one for a few weeks. If this thread starts getting some traction I don't mind ordering a Zachary's pizza and dissecting it and posting pictures. I'm not a baker but maybe someone could get some clues regarding their crust with some closeup pictures??? Clearly Zachary's crust is way different than Malnati's since the amount of oil is 2t vs about 20t, with the flour/water/salt/sugar being similar.

Lastly I just read an article in Diablo magazine about Patxi's Chicago pizza (link below). They are getting good yelp reviews (but not as good as Zachary with 4.5stars) so wondering if anyone has an opinion on them vs Zachary's?

http://patxispizza.com/

jcg

[norma427]

jcg,

I don’t know what a Zachary’s stuffed crust is like, but maybe you might look at Giordano’s Style stuffed crust to see if that is something you might be looking for.  http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5674.100.html

I tried a Giordano’s Stuffed crust at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10018.0.html  I used Peter’s formula for my Giordano’s Style pizza at Reply 116 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5674.msg69607.html#msg69607

Norma

[Essen1]

JCG,

I'm in the SF Bay Area.

Unfortunately, I'm not much into deep dish but have only heard good things about Zachary's.

[jcg]

I started a 2nd thread over in the cracker style forum when I didn't get many replies to this thread and was trying to see what style crust was used by Zachary's. I bought a Zachary's last night and posted pics in that thread, plus I tried my first attempt at recreating it and posted pics / questions. You can follow along at the link below, and at some point the thread may get moved over into this thread as this is where it ultimately belongs.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,14146.0.html

jcg

[jcg]

Just to let everyone know I made my 2nd attempt at the dough a few weeks ago, and will be doing a 3rd attempt tonight. The results are/will be posted in the thread over in the cracker style forum, see previous posts for the link. And if we have anyone from the SF bay area on these boards please speak up as it would be great if we can get more people besides myself attempting this.

jcg

[pete_vb]

jcg,

I don’t know what a Zachary’s stuffed crust is like, but maybe you might look at Giordano’s Style stuffed crust to see if that is something you might be looking for. 

Exactly.  I grew up in Chicago eating Giordano's (among others), now living in the bay area and get to Zachary's regularly.  Zachary's is better, but it's similar to Giordano's, so that'd be my starting point.

I can't provide much guidance beyond that, but I wish you luck and please let us know what you come up with.