Mellow Mushroom Pizza found in Atlanta and surroundin areas...Recipes?

[norma427]

This is also the Granulated Cane Juice Syrup

[norma427]

This is how the dough ball looked, before it was frozen, using the formula that Peter posted at Reply 722 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg160094.html#msg160094

Norma

[norma427]

Dough ball after it was taken out of the freezer yesterday afternoon.  I also was at my local supermarket last evening and they do carry Steen's 100% Pure Cane Syrup.  I don't know how I missed the Steen's product before.  It was with the other syrups and molasses products.  It was 4.89.

Norma

[norma427]

I called Golden Barrel this morning, and talked to a technical man about the Golden Barrel Supreme Baking Molasses and how they make their product.  The technical man told me they don’t produce the cane juice/syrup at Golden Barrel, but do add it to their Blackstrap molasses to make the Golden Barrel Baking Molasses product.  He also said the cane syrup is added in much greater qualities than the blackstrap molasses.  He said only a little of the blackstrap molasses is used in the Golden Barrel Supreme Baking Molasses, and the rest is the cane syrup.  I said I had noticed that one the pint container (I had bought at the supermarket) only stated molasses listed in the ingredients and saw at the Dutch Valley website that cane juice and molasses were listed as the ingredients.  He said they both are exactly the same product.  I asked how the cane syrup/juice is made, and he said it was made with an extraction spin-off.  He said the process of making Golden Supreme Baking Molasses is mostly dependent on the Brix value.  I asked him if any of their other products would be sweeter in taste and he said yes, but a lot of corn syrup is used in those products. 

I told him that I am trying to make a pizza dough with a molasses product, but I haven’t been able to get it sweet enough with molasses alone.  He said he never heard of someone making a pizza dough with molasses, but wished me good luck.   

Norma

[norma427]

Peter,

I wanted to let you know your MM clone dough formulation worked well.  I also thought your formulation tasted the closest to the MM pies I ate from Washington DC.  The dough sat out at room temperature for 4 hours.  The dough opened well, and I also used the methods to open the dough as shown from the MM videos I posted.

Steve and my taste testers also thought this was the best attempt in the taste of the crust too!  My crumb wasn’t as airy as before, so that also was more in line with a real MM pie.

Norma

[norma427]

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[Pete-zza]

Norma,

I'm glad to see that your latest results appear to mirror my recent experience. The results also seem to support the notion that MM is using a second sweetener in addition to the molasses. We know that that second sweetener is not honey but that doesn't rule out the possibility that the second sweetener is something like the cane syrup in the Golden Barrel Baking Molasses product, even if there is more of the cane syrup than molasses. I can easily see how someone might refer to a product like the Golden Barrel Baking Molasses product as simply being "molasses", especially since the word molasses is used in the product's name.

FYI, I did send an email to MM with several questions that I came up with after spending a good part of a day playing around with the numbers in the MM Nutrition Facts. If I get a response that answers my questions, I should have a better idea of some of the baker's percents of ingredients used by MM in its dough. However, even without more information from MM, I think that the amount of salt that MM uses in its dough may be less than what we have been using and also that more oil may be used. Based on my study of the MM Nutrition Facts, I have prepared and frozen a test dough ball using the Steen's 100% pure cane syrup and Grandma's Original molasses, and also revised baker's percents for salt and oil. The color of the dough is a shade darker than when I used honey along with the Grandma's Original molasses. The Steen's product has a somewhat sweeter taste than the Grandma's Original molasses but does not have the sharpness and depth of the flavor of the Grandma's Original molasses. The colors of the two products is about the same. These are some of the reasons why I will be interested in your results when you get around to using a blend with more cane syrup than molasses. I should also mention that because of the amounts of the Steen's cane syrup and Grandma's Original molasses I used, which were based on the MM Nutrition Facts, the formula hydration was only 51%. Yet, I had no problem with dryness of the finished dough. It behaved like most of the other test doughs. In fact, I think I could have lowered the formula hydration even more.

In making the latest dough ball, I also wondered whether high salt levels can masquerade sweetness in a finished crust. Maybe the results will test this idea. I might add that the revised amounts of salt and oil are not dramatically different than what we have been using in our various tests. Unfortunately, there is no way of determining from the MM Nutrition Facts how much yeast and how much water is used to make the MM dough. That information would allow us to zero in on things a bit better.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

I'm glad to see that your latest results appear to mirror my recent experience. The results also seem to support the notion that MM is using a second sweetener in addition to the molasses. We know that that second sweetener is not honey but that doesn't rule out the possibility that the second sweetener is something like the cane syrup in the Golden Barrel Baking Molasses product, even if there is more of the cane syrup than molasses. I can easily see how someone might refer to a product like the Golden Barrel Baking Molasses product as simply being "molasses", especially since the word molasses is used in the product's name.

FYI, I did send an email to MM with several questions that I came up with after spending a good part of a day playing around with the numbers in the MM Nutrition Facts. If I get a response that answers my questions, I should have a better idea of some of the baker's percents of ingredients used by MM in its dough. However, even without more information from MM, I think that the amount of salt that MM uses in its dough may be less than what we have been using and also that more oil may be used. Based on my study of the MM Nutrition Facts, I have prepared and frozen a test dough ball using the Steen's 100% pure cane syrup and Grandma's Original molasses, and also revised baker's percents for salt and oil. The color of the dough is a shade darker than when I used honey along with the Grandma's Original molasses. The Steen's product has a somewhat sweeter taste than the Grandma's Original molasses but does not have the sharpness and depth of the flavor of the Grandma's Original molasses. The colors of the two products is about the same. These are some of the reasons why I will be interested in your results when you get around to using a blend with more cane syrup than molasses. I should also mention that because of the amounts of the Steen's cane syrup and Grandma's Original molasses I used, which were based on the MM Nutrition Facts, the formula hydration was only 51%. Yet, I had no problem with dryness of the finished dough. It behaved like most of the other test doughs. In fact, I think I could have lowered the formula hydration even more.

In making the latest dough ball, I also wondered whether high salt levels can masquerade sweetness in a finished crust. Maybe the results will test this idea. I might add that the revised amounts of salt and oil are not dramatically different than what we have been using in our various tests. Unfortunately, there is no way of determining from the MM Nutrition Facts how much yeast and how much water is used to make the MM dough. That information would allow us to zero in on things a bit better.

Peter

Peter,

Since I didn’t see any pictures of your pizza that you used the same formulation I used, did my pictures look anything like your attempt using the same formulation baked in your home oven?

Good to hear you did send MM an email with several questions, after you spent a good part of the day playing around with the numbers in the MM Nutrition Facts.  If you get a reply, I am sure you would get a better idea of the baker’s percent of ingredients used by MM in their dough.  Interesting that you think the salt used in MM dough is less than what we have been using and also more oil might be used.  Interesting also that your formulation only used 51% hydration.  That is really low, but can understand with the added syrups it would be some higher.  Your intuition about the salt masking the sweetness also might be right.  I could understand how salt could masquerade sweetness in a finished crust.  Your test should give us an idea if less salt is used in the formulation if the crust becomes sweeter.  Always interesting how you figure out everything.   

I wondered how many people purchase the Golden Barrel Baking Molasses at the retail level and only think it is a molasses product  (because that is what is only listed on the ingredients) without the cane syrup as the main ingredient.  I guess it doesn’t really matter though, since cane syrup does make molasses.

If you think of a formulation attempt for me to try out for next week with the cane syrup, let me know.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, and all the other members of the forum!

I forgot to post one picture last evening of the MM attempt.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

The pizza I made with the Grandma's Original molasses and the clover honey was a 10" pizza based on using a thickness factor of 0.15279 as compared with the thickness factor value of 0.118684 that you used for your 14" pizza. My pizza had a more pronounced rim than yours and the center was more sunken. However, I worked hard to create and maintain the rim because I wanted to see if I could get the more distinct rim. I think it also helped that I had more dough per square inch of surface area to push toward the rim to make it larger in relation to the rest of the skin.

With respect to the MM Nutrition Facts, it is always a challenge trying to make sense of the numbers. Sometimes it isn't even clear where the creators of Nutrition Facts get their numbers. Some places use software and others use actual laboratory data. In some cases, the data is for unbaked pizzas, and in others it is for baked pizzas. I'm not sure where MM stands on this score. As you know from some of our other efforts, pizzas also lose weight during baking. And there is also extensive use of rounding of numbers that makes it difficult to calculate quantities of ingredients and baker's percents, especially where certain ingredients like salt and sugar can exist in the dough, the sauce and cheese. If I get answers to the questions I posed to MM, maybe I can make better headway.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

The pizza I made with the Grandma's Original molasses and the clover honey was a 10" pizza based on using a thickness factor of 0.15279 as compared with the thickness factor value of 0.118684 that you used for your 14" pizza. My pizza had a more pronounced rim than yours and the center was more sunken. However, I worked hard to create and maintain the rim because I wanted to see if I could get the more distinct rim. I think it also helped that I had more dough per square inch of surface area to push toward the rim to make it larger in relation to the rest of the skin.

With respect to the MM Nutrition Facts, it is always a challenge trying to make sense of the numbers. Sometimes it isn't even clear where the creators of Nutrition Facts get their numbers. Some places use software and others use actual laboratory data. In some cases, the data is for unbaked pizzas, and in others it is for baked pizzas. I'm not sure where MM stands on this score. As you know from some of our other efforts, pizzas also lose weight during baking. And there is also extensive use of rounding of numbers that makes it difficult to calculate quantities of ingredients and baker's percents, especially where certain ingredients like salt and sugar can exist in the dough, the sauce and cheese. If I get answers to the questions I posed to MM, maybe I can make better headway.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for telling me what your pizza looked like using the same MM clone formulation I used.  I thought I had worked to form the rim, but somehow my last attempt didn’t have the pronounced rim, when some of my other attempts did.  In the end though, if anyone wants to try your formulation, I also think it would be the best one to use if they want to attempt to make a clone pizza like MM.   

I know pizzas lose weight from some of our other efforts when they are baked.  I also don’t know where MM stands on that score.  I can understand it is a challenge to make sense of the Nutrition Facts.  You seem to do a great job.  I didn’t know some places use software and others use actual laboratory data for Nutrition Facts.  Thanks for explaining more.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Your intuition about the salt masking the sweetness also might be right.  I could understand how salt could masquerade sweetness in a finished crust.  Your test should give us an idea if less salt is used in the formulation if the crust becomes sweeter.

Norma,

This morning, I decided to conduct an experiment independent of the last MM clone dough I made with the Steen's 100% pure cane syrup and the Grandma's Original molasses to see if salt does, in fact, masquerade the sweetness imparted by those products. What prompted the test to begin with was the observation that came to me recently when I reheated leftover slices of two different MM clone pizzas. I didn't note which dough formulations I used for the two slices but one of the slices tasted noticeably saltier than the other, with little perception of sweetness. Up to that point, I had been playing around with salt levels between 1.75% and 2%, but mostly at 2%. That was also before I saw and studied the MM Nutrition Facts.

For the test, I took the formula amounts for the water, the Steen's 100% cane sugar syrup and the Grandma's Original molasses that I used for the most recent dough formulation and I made two identical separate solutions. I stirred the solutions to dissolve everything. I then added the formula amount of salt from the most recent dough formulation to one of the two solutions and stirred the solution to completely dissolve the salt. So, the only difference between the two solutions was that one of them contained salt and the other did not. For my test, I used Morton's table salt, on the assumption that MM might be using a similar salt because of price and the smaller particle size of ordinary table salt that might dissolve more quickly and uniformly than other forms of salt and, accordingly, lend itself better to commercial production. I then tasted the two solutions, rinsing my mouth out with plain water between tastings. After several such taste pairings, the results clearly showed that salt does, indeed, reduce the sensation of sweetness. It was much more than I would have imagined. As an additional simple test, I decided to add oil, in the amount I used in the latest dough formulation, to the two solutions to see if that had any effect on sweetness (which I doubted). I could not detect any impairment of sweetness due to the oil. Of course, the oil did not dissolve in the water, but I stirred it anyway before taking my taste samples.

Knowing that you have been using Morton's Kosher salt, I did one final test in which I placed equal amounts of the formula water from my latest dough formulation into two containers and added Morton's table salt to one container and Morton's Kosher salt to the other, in equal weights. After stirring to dissolve the two salts, I tasted them, again rinsing my mouth with plain water between tastings. After several such taste pairings, I thought that the Morton's Kosher salt solution tasted a bit saltier than the Morton's table salt solution but I don't think that the difference was great enough to really matter.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

After your recent post on the Golden Barrel Supreme Baking Molasses, and thinking about a possible MM clone dough formulation that you might use with the Golden Barrel product, I called the company to get a bit more technical information on the product. I ended up speaking with Oscar, who may have been the one you spoke with (I told him that I was assisting you on a possible dough formulation using their product). As it turns out, there is no blackstrap molasses in the product. It is 100% cane juice that comes from the plant and has been boiled down into a syrup, apparently without involving any centrifugal action. The product carries a Grade A, or Fancy, designation. It sounds like it is like the Steen's product that I recently purchased. Apparently, the word "molasses" is quite slippery from a designation standpoint, allowing producers to use that term even for a cane sugar syrup.

I also asked Oscar how much water is in their product, to allow me to adjust the formula hydration to reflect the water content of the Golden Molasses product. It is about 20%. When I asked Oscar whether he considers corn syrup and brown sugar to be refined sugars, he answered yes to both questions. He did say, however, that raw cane sugar (turbinado) is not a refined sugar. Oscar also agrees with us that molasses--as we have been using that term--does not taste sweet (he volunteered that opinion himself when I told him that you were striving for sweetness), and that the terms Robust and Full Flavor and the like that we have seen with the retail-level molasses products are somewhat misleading and not truly indicative of what the products really are.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

This morning, I decided to conduct an experiment independent of the last MM clone dough I made with the Steen's 100% pure cane syrup and the Grandma's Original molasses to see if salt does, in fact, masquerade the sweetness imparted by those products. What prompted the test to begin with was the observation that came to me recently when I reheated leftover slices of two different MM clone pizzas. I didn't note which dough formulations I used for the two slices but one of the slices tasted noticeably saltier than the other, with little perception of sweetness. Up to that point, I had been playing around with salt levels between 1.75% and 2%, but mostly at 2%. That was also before I saw and studied the MM Nutrition Facts.

For the test, I took the formula amounts for the water, the Steen's 100% cane sugar syrup and the Grandma's Original molasses that I used for the most recent dough formulation and I made two identical separate solutions. I stirred the solutions to dissolve everything. I then added the formula amount of salt from the most recent dough formulation to one of the two solutions and stirred the solution to completely dissolve the salt. So, the only difference between the two solutions was that one of them contained salt and the other did not. For my test, I used Morton's table salt, on the assumption that MM might be using a similar salt because of price and the smaller particle size of ordinary table salt that might dissolve more quickly and uniformly than other forms of salt and, accordingly, lend itself better to commercial production. I then tasted the two solutions, rinsing my mouth out with plain water between tastings. After several such taste pairings, the results clearly showed that salt does, indeed, reduce the sensation of sweetness. It was much more than I would have imagined. As an additional simple test, I decided to add oil, in the amount I used in the latest dough formulation, to the two solutions to see if that had any effect on sweetness (which I doubted). I could not detect any impairment of sweetness due to the oil. Of course, the oil did not dissolve in the water, but I stirred it anyway before taking my taste samples.

Knowing that you have been using Morton's Kosher salt, I did one final test in which I placed equal amounts of the formula water from my latest dough formulation into two containers and added Morton's table salt to one container and Morton's Kosher salt to the other, in equal weights. After stirring to dissolve the two salts, I tasted them, again rinsing my mouth with plain water between tastings. After several such taste pairings, I thought that the Morton's Kosher salt solution tasted a bit saltier than the Morton's table salt solution but I don't think that the difference was great enough to really matter.

Peter

Peter,

Those were very interesting observations you did to see if salt does masquerade the sweetness of the Steen’s 100 % pure cane syrup and the Grandma’s Original molasses, if salt if added.  I didn’t think about doing a test like you did, but do know adding different ingredients can alter the taste of products.  Just this week in the Mack’s thread Steve and I did think the Great Value tomato product with other ingredients added did taste sweeter for some reason, (when no sugar was added) but I couldn’t pinpoint why.  We decided to add lemon juice to the sauce and the sauce did then taste like the Gangi sauce.  I know that doesn’t have anything to do with this MM experiments you did, but how we perceived sweetness in any product with our taste buds is interesting.  I never thought about MM using table salt either, but since you know so much more than I do, your judgment on MM using table salt because of the price and smaller particle size makes sense.  Good to hear you did find out when adding salt does, indeed, reduce the sensation of sweetness.  It is also interesting that it was much more than you had imagined.  Your conducting the experiments with oil was also fascinating.  Thanks for doing the experiments! 

Norma,

After your recent post on the Golden Barrel Supreme Baking Molasses, and thinking about a possible MM clone dough formulation that you might use with the Golden Barrel product, I called the company to get a bit more technical information on the product. I ended up speaking with Oscar, who may have been the one you spoke with (I told him that I was assisting you on a possible dough formulation using their product). As it turns out, there is no blackstrap molasses in the product. It is 100% cane juice that comes from the plant and has been boiled down into a syrup, apparently without involving any centrifugal action. The product carries a Grade A, or Fancy, designation. It sounds like it is like the Steen's product that I recently purchased. Apparently, the word "molasses" is quite slippery from a designation standpoint, allowing producers to use that term even for a cane sugar syrup.

I also asked Oscar how much water is in their product, to allow me to adjust the formula hydration to reflect the water content of the Golden Molasses product. It is about 20%. When I asked Oscar whether he considers corn syrup and brown sugar to be refined sugars, he answered yes to both questions. He did say, however, that raw cane sugar (turbinado) is not a refined sugar. Oscar also agrees with us that molasses--as we have been using that term--does not taste sweet (he volunteered that opinion himself when I told him that you were striving for sweetness), and that the terms Robust and Full Flavor and the like that we have seen with the retail-level molasses products are somewhat misleading and not truly indicative of what the products really are.

Peter

Good to hear you also called Golden Barrel and spoke to Oscar.  I don’t think I did speak to Oscar, but I could be wrong.  The man I talked to said Blackstrap molasses was added to the Golden Barrel Supreme Baking Molasses and the cane syrup was the main ingredient.  Whoever I did talk to sure didn’t know what he was talking about.  I didn’t know that the cane syrup arrives at Golden Barrel and then is boiled down into a syrup.  I know you are much better at talking to someone about technical matters, because you do understand more than I do.  Interesting, that the Golden Barrel Supreme Baking Molasses is something like the Steen’s product that you recently purchased. What color is your Steen’s product? I agree, that the word “molasses’s” is quite slippery from a designation standpoint, allowing producers to use that term even for a cane sugar syrup.

I think we thought before that corn syrup and brown sugar were refined sugars, but it was interesting to hear that Oscar also thought so.  Glad you decided to call Golden Barrel to get more information. 

Where does all this lead us to now, in coming up with another clone formulation that might be something like MM is using?  I am not clear on what you might be thinking would be the next step.

Norma