Author Topic: Mellow Mushroom Pizza found in Atlanta and surroundin areas...Recipes? (Read 95284 times)

Chicago Bob · « **Reply #980 on:** January 11, 2012, 02:52:26 PM »

Peter,

That is exactly what I was thinking when I told you yesterday how VERY cold that dough felt at 2 o'clock in the afternoon considering it was just "made" the night before.The MM employee that boxed the dough for me did not speak English very well and perhaps he thinks that since the dough is there and ready for him when he comes in to work in the morning that they must have been made the night before.

I'm gonna check it out.....

Bob

norma427 · « **Reply #981 on:** January 11, 2012, 04:44:24 PM »

Bob,

I don’t know if you saw where I visited MM in Washington, DC or not, but these are some pictures of the MM pizzas and dough balls on Reply 417 and the following posts. http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg157598.html#msg157598 If you look at the pictures of the MM dough balls in those posts from Washington, DC, you will see those dough balls looked dry and firm, unlike the dough balls that you posted pictures of at Reply 974 and your following post http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg167002.html#msg167002 I think I saw MM employees take the dough balls right out of refrigeration before opening the dough balls, but I couldn’t be sure, because the refrigerator or where the dough balls were kept, were out of my view. I wonder how long those dough balls you purchased were left to ferment. Maybe you could ask your local MM business just how long they let their dough balls out to ferment, or if they left them ferment over a certain period of days. They might be able to tell you if you can buy frozen dough balls or not. These are just suggestions. I also would be interested in if any MM locations actually make their own dough balls, because I couldn’t find information about that, although Peter did seem to confirm that the doughs are made in the commissary. As Peter posted, I don’t want to discourage you either, from asking if dough could be made at your MM location.

I will wait to purchase a better digital scale for weighing in smaller increments for the hydrations tests until you decide if sending the doughs balls would become to expensive or inconvenient for you. I don’t want you to go to a lot of trouble sending dough balls for me to test if it is a lot of trouble for you.

Thanks so much for your help on this thread.

Norma

Chicago Bob · « **Reply #982 on:** January 12, 2012, 10:23:39 AM »

Norma,

Thanks for directing me to the pic's and video's taken on your recent trip to D.C.. I had fun looking at them! Your dough pic at reply 417 has eased my worried mind...the one's I had were very similar,as you will soon see (already in the mail

). My replies at 973 & 978 did mention that the MM shop here says they make the dough one night an use it the next day.I'm still checking on that but I think you will see from my next post that the dough I had was not old or damaged in any way...guess I got a lil paranoid!

I don't see how they are able to open up these cold little pucks, but then,I have little to zero experience at tossing dough.

I continue to see many members talking about wanting to get a decent scale and I would like to present here a very low cost option that i am using to measure the small weight/size ingredients that we are all working with here.

Goggle...Amazon, American-weigh-AWS-100

This is a small "pocket" digital scale,measures down to .01 gram and ounce,and sells for under $13. Don't let the price fool you, it's very accurate and easy to use. I place a 2 1/2 in. round ramakin on the scale,tare it and then measure my yeast,salt,sugar,ect. Works great! I bought 2 scales and a $3.58, 50 gram calibration weight for just over 25 bucks...that makes it eligible for free shipping.

I hope this info will inspire other's to go ahead and get themselves a decent little scale that will enhance their enjoyment here on the forum.

Bob

Chicago Bob · « **Reply #983 on:** January 12, 2012, 10:56:55 AM »

Wowzza! This one almost got away from me!!

My first ever taste and trial use of a dough ball from my local MM pizza shop!

Chicago Bob · « **Reply #984 on:** January 12, 2012, 11:55:23 AM »

And I thought it was BLOWN........

Well, now I know what all the fuss has been about! This MM dough has a VERY alluring and satisfying taste to it indeed!!
As previously mentioned, I've used the MM dough in some Chicago thin experiments (you don't wanna know

). To be honest,when in MM restaurant purchasing dough balls ,I never really liked the looks of the pies I'd seen customers eating. They sure had a HUGE rim and I mean real doughy look'in man...so I never sat down an tried one. Momma Mia,was I ever missing out! This stuff makes a mean pizza...do not hesitate to give a try, you'll likey.....

OK,...for this pizza I used 7/11 tomato's,Grande east coast shred,It.sausage(more on that soon

) and,of course....'srooms,man........it was far-out!

9.8 oz. dough stretched to make a 10 in. pie, gas oven with broiler-main heat source on the bottom,550 degree stone on lowest shelf,cornmealed peel release,6 min. bake 90 sec. under broiler.
I don't know what I was thinking but I set my timer for 10 min.and just about when I remembered reading that Norma had cooked one of these at market for just 6 mins. I looked over at my timer and it was at 3 min. left! Took a looksee an thought I'd burnt it but the cheese still needed a lil more color,hence, 90 sec. under the broiler.

Don't let that fairly dark look on the bottom of my crust fool you.This crust cooked up light an crispy..not a hint of a hard, burnt, thick layer.Nice crisp,airy rim and as you can see the crumb does have a slight denseness to it but that therin is where the magic of the MM dough resides.It's sorta hard to describe....an almost fermented or candied underling sweetness to it. Not sugary sweet...much more complex than that. I gotta tell ya,it is quite unique and alluring almost intoxicating....pulls you in wanting more!

I'm really glad I tried this and I highly re commed it. Norma will soon be able to tell everone if my experience with the MM store bought dough is similar to the clones that she and Peter have been developing. I suggest going ahead and trying one of theirs cause you know they are very clever people and you do not want to miss out on this beauty!

Enjoy....here's a few more pics of this great dough in action.

Pete-zza · « **Reply #985 on:** January 12, 2012, 12:49:18 PM »

Bob,

Congratulations. Your MM pizza looks great. It was also good to see how a gas oven does with the MM style of pizza.

For future reference, you might want to keep in mind that a 10" MM pizza uses 12 ounces of dough. As noted earlier in this thread, MM uses a much larger thickness factor for the 10" pizza than it does for its larger pizzas. I have been playing around with only 10" pizzas but Norma has been making 14" pizzas.

Peter

Chicago Bob · « **Reply #986 on:** January 12, 2012, 01:15:21 PM »

Peter,

Thanks for the congrats. As I mentioned in my last post,the HUGE rims I was seeing in the MM restaurant are what kept me from trying their pizza.That's why I stretched mine a lil leaner than their's...jus personal preference.

I wonder why they would use a different tf on the ten inch? Depending on what size a customer ordered they would be having a different experience at MM than others do,no? Thanks again,Peter!

Bob

norma427 · « **Reply #987 on:** January 12, 2012, 01:23:43 PM »

Bob,

I also congratulate you on your first MM pizza.

It looks delicious! Thanks for the pictures also. Glad to hear your real MM dough ball wasn’t damaged in anyway. I am also glad you like the taste of the baked MM pizza. Your choice of dressing sound good too.

I never would have thought about trying a MM real pizza or clone because I usually don’t like chain pizzas. For some reason when the MM pizzas where posted about, I became interested because they looked so much different than other chain pizzas and MM cool website.

I liked the looks of the MM pizzas in all ways.

After Biz posted and got involved, and then Peter started trying to reverse engineer MM pizzas, it made me wonder what they might taste like. After a few dead ends, I was surprised how good the MM clone pizzas tasted. It was uphill from there.

Thank you very much for posting you already send me a MM dough to test and be able to feel and even taste the dough.

I am very anxious to get a hold of a real MM dough ball.

Thanks also for the recommendation of what kind of scale for me to buy. I should have purchased a scale that weighs in smaller amounts a long while ago, but somehow I got sidetracked. My market scale can weigh in kg, but then I don’t know how to convert kg to grams. My math is very bad.

I will be very happy to report how the real MM dough ball stacks up to the MM clones Peter and I have been trying.

Do you know how much the dough balls weighed that you purchased?

Thanks so much again! Far-out man! (that was from back in my former want to be hippy days)

Norma

Pymella · « **Reply #988 on:** January 12, 2012, 01:37:37 PM »

Quote from: Chicago Bob on January 12, 2012, 10:56:55 AM

Wowzza! This one almost got away from me!!

Thanks for the pics. All I can say is wow wow wow. What a fantastic looking pie!!! I love love love the smaller size rim. Can't wait to share this with all my pizza loving friends. Nice job CB!!!!! u da man!!!!!!

Pymella · « **Reply #989 on:** January 12, 2012, 01:46:05 PM »

Quote from: Pymella on January 12, 2012, 01:37:37 PM

Quote from: Chicago Bob on January 12, 2012, 10:56:55 AM
Wowzza! This one almost got away from me!!

Thanks for the pics. All I can say is wow wow wow. What a fantastic looking pie!!! I love love love the smaller size rim. Can't wait to share this with all my pizza loving friends. Nice job CB!!!!! u da man!!!!!!

Oh and by the way you should be called "Chef Bob"!!!

Pete-zza · « **Reply #990 on:** January 12, 2012, 02:02:04 PM »

Quote from: Chicago Bob on January 12, 2012, 01:15:21 PM

I wonder why they would use a different tf on the ten inch? Depending on what size a customer ordered they would be having a different experience at MM than others do,no?

Bob,

Some pizza places that make several different sizes of pizzas often use the same thickness factor for all sizes (I believe that Jet's Pizza does this) whereas others, especially independents, often use dough balls with weights in round numbers rather than some oddball fractional numbers (like 12.3 ounces). I know that Papa John's uses different thickness factors for its different sizes, although the variations among them are small and not as large as between the MM 10" pizza and the larger MM sizes. I am not exactly certain how MM came up with its dough ball weights. Back at Reply 40 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg151292.html#msg151292, I speculated that maybe the different thickness factors and corresponding dough ball weights were used to be able to bake different size pizzas within a more or less standardized period of time no matter what went onto the pizzas in the way of toppings. That way, if someone ordered a small pizza and a larger one, they would both be done at about the same time and delivered to the table at the same time, without having so set the small one aside while the bigger one finished baking. That might mean better management of the process, especially when there are often a lot of workers making pizzas at the same time. This is all just my speculation.

Peter

Chicago Bob · « **Reply #991 on:** January 12, 2012, 06:45:01 PM »

Norma,

I seem to remember a post or two of your's where you were making pretzels with leftover pizza dough.If you wouldn't mind ,please direct me and also tell me the favorite way customers at the market preferred them to be "topped"....egg wash, salt, parm. cheese,etc..
My girlfriend is from Germany and she likes a "mall" pretzel once in awhile....dips it in senf.

Thanks,and glad you liked the looks of the MM pizza I made.

p.s. I purchased "medium" size dough balls and was told they weigh 1lb. .I bought that size because I remembered from yours and Peters trials that you all were working with 18.something ounces and therefor I'd be close.But at home theyall weighed 13 ounces and I know my scale is accurate...go figure,huh?

Pete-zza · « **Reply #992 on:** January 12, 2012, 07:05:59 PM »

Quote from: Chicago Bob on January 12, 2012, 06:45:01 PM

p.s. I purchased "medium" size dough balls and was told they weigh 1lb. .I bought that size because I remembered from yours and Peters trials that you all were working with 18.something ounces and therefor I'd be close.But at home theyall weighed 13 ounces and I know my scale is accurate...go figure,huh?

Bob,

You can read what I was told by the Jacksonville, FL MM location about the weight of their dough balls at Reply 42 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg151482.html#msg151482. There seems to be a disconnect somewhere.

Peter

norma427 · « **Reply #993 on:** January 12, 2012, 07:58:18 PM »

Quote from: Chicago Bob on January 12, 2012, 06:45:01 PM

Norma,

I seem to remember a post or two of your's where you were making pretzels with leftover pizza dough.If you wouldn't mind ,please direct me and also tell me the favorite way customers at the market preferred them to be "topped"....egg wash, salt, parm. cheese,etc..
My girlfriend is from Germany and she likes a "mall" pretzel once in awhile....dips it in senf.

Thanks,and glad you liked the looks of the MM pizza I made.

p.s. I purchased "medium" size dough balls and was told they weigh 1lb. .I bought that size because I remembered from yours and Peters trials that you all were working with 18.something ounces and therefor I'd be close.But at home theyall weighed 13 ounces and I know my scale is accurate...go figure,huh?

Bob,

I am not making pretzels out of MM clone doughs right now to sell at market. I only tried a couple of times to make pretzels out of the MM clone dough balls. I might try selling pretzels this spring when market gets busier. From spring until winter there are many tourists and regular customers at market. In the winter when it is colder in our area, there aren’t as many customers. If I were to sell the MM clone pretzels, I would dress them with the honey bath like MM does, sprinkle them with Parmesan, add pretzels salt, or serve them with pizza sauce. Maybe, I would offer mustard for them to be dipped in. In our area we are know for hard pretzels and soft pretzels. You could use any kind of dip your girlfriend likes. I did try different ways to make them at home one time at Reply 665 second picture down http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg159526.html#msg159526 and the next few posts, where I added different dressings to see if I could make the pretzels shiny.

I also reported on how many soft pretzels can be made out of a small dough ball at Reply 740 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg160296.html#msg160296 and showed the MM employees cutting the pretzels from a small dough ball at Reply 418 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg157599.html#msg157599. We had the soft pretzels with Parmesan cheese and garlic at MM in Washington, DC and where Peter asked me about if I could taste the garlic on the pretzels is at Reply 742 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg160299.html#msg160299

I think Peter is trying to make sense out of the weight of your dough ball you purchased, in his last post that he posted that the weight of a small dough ball was 12 oz., the weight of a medium dough ball was 18 oz., and the weight of a large dough ball was 24 oz. There does seem to be some kind of disconnect if your dough ball weighed 13 oz. and it was supposed to be a medium dough ball.

Sorry, but I will have to wait until I get another scale to do the experiments on the dough ball you sent me. I wish I could start the experiments as soon as I receive the real MM dough ball.

Norma

Chicago Bob · « **Reply #994 on:** January 13, 2012, 01:00:05 AM »

Norma,

I'll post again tomorrow to address your kind information presented to me.....I just produced a rather lengthy response and it was somehow lost...mushroom karma jus don't seem to be dig'in it on this thread! Oh well,what can we do....... $:-\$

Yes, there seems to be a fungus among us on these dough weights.Plus, no two people can decide on the correct price either for each dough ball at my MM shop. but they do concur that their standard is ...half pound, one pound, and one and one half pound. So I have no idea where my 13 ouncer fits in....lets just give all of this a rest for a minute. I'm going down there tomorrow and see if anybody speaks Chicago slang....film at '11!

Thanks Norma....

Bob

p.s. I hope they sock it to me with some real hip happinings man....sure don't want a bummer scene laid on me! I don't groove on that jive rap,you dig.....

norma427 · « **Reply #995 on:** January 13, 2012, 06:46:17 AM »

Quote from: Chicago Bob on January 13, 2012, 01:00:05 AM

Norma,

I'll post again tomorrow to address your kind information presented to me.....I just produced a rather lengthy response and it was somehow lost...mushroom karma jus don't seem to be dig'in it on this thread! Oh well,what can we do....... $:-\$

Yes, there seems to be a fungus among us on these dough weights.Plus, no two people can decide on the correct price either for each dough ball at my MM shop. but they do concur that their standard is ...half pound, one pound, and one and one half pound. So I have no idea where my 13 ouncer fits in....lets just give all of this a rest for a minute. I'm going down there tomorrow and see if anybody speaks Chicago slang....film at '11!

Thanks Norma....

Bob

p.s. I hope they sock it to me with some real hip happinings man....sure don't want a bummer scene laid on me! I don't groove on that jive rap,you dig.....

Bob,

Lol, you saying “mushroom karma” was funny!

Sorry, you lost your post. Did you also post around 8:08 pm last evening. I usually check the box so I will get instant email notification when someone posts on a thread I have replied on. Somehow I got instant email notification that you posted at that time. When I went to go to the post nothing was there. I was just curious what happened. Maybe it was the bad karma of this thread. $:-\$ I have lost many posts, so now if I want to post anything that is lengthy, I first type it on my word processor and copy and paste it into the reply post. That way if something happens, I still have what I wrote to try again. I think some other members also have their ways of not losing posts.

That fungus among us on those dough weights is puzzling too. Gosh, no one can get their act together on the price of their dough balls at your MM shop. Sounds like some kind of karma is going on there too.

I am sure digging your hippy talk!

Good luck when you go to MM!

Norma

Pete-zza · « **Reply #996 on:** January 13, 2012, 11:06:39 AM »

Earlier in this thread, I referenced an article at http://www.nbcdfw.com/the-scene/food-drink/Mellow-Mushrooms-House-Special-Recipe.html in which instructions are given for making an MM style pizza at home. While not dispositive of the issue of dough ball weight in relation to pizza size, the article does discuss using 12 ounces of dough for a 10" pizza.

It is interesting how MM's workers don't know the weights of the dough balls used to make their pizzas. And maybe they can't even weigh them correctly. When I was making my Papa John's clone pizzas, I discovered that the workers at PJs didn't know the weights of their dough balls either. All I got was puzzled looks and mumbling that they had no idea as to the dough ball weights. That demonstrates one of the beauties of the commissary business model. All the workers have to know is how to distinguish between the different sizes of dough balls and assemble pizzas from them. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to tell from the MM Nutrition Facts what typical pizzas weigh. Unlike other pizza chain Nutrition Facts, the MM Nutrition Facts only make reference to serving sizes without giving corresponding weights. I think I have figured an end around solution to this problem but I will have to spend more time with it to see if I can fathom at least the smallest dough ball weight.

Peter

norma427 · « **Reply #997 on:** January 13, 2012, 01:08:29 PM »

Quote from: Pete-zza on January 13, 2012, 11:06:39 AM

I think I have figured an end around solution to this problem but I will have to spend more time with it to see if I can fathom at least the smallest dough ball weight.

Peter

Peter,

It will be interesting to see if you can find a solution to find out the weight of a small MM dough ball.

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #998 on:** January 13, 2012, 01:11:47 PM »

I did buy a scale that can weigh in smaller amounts last evening on Amazon. I probably will receive it between 1/19/2012-1/24/2012. I have been wanting to have a scale that can weigh in smaller amounts for awhile.

Norma

Pete-zza · « **Reply #999 on:** January 14, 2012, 12:48:01 PM »

Quote from: norma427 on January 13, 2012, 01:08:29 PM

It will be interesting to see if you can find a solution to find out the weight of a small MM dough ball.

Norma,

I did analyze the MM Nutrition Facts and came to the conclusion, after several different sets of calculations, that the small MM dough ball is most likely 12 ounces. I can't give an exact weight because of the nature of the MM Nutrition Facts that prevents exact calculations. Also, there are other factors to consider. For example, I don't know it the MM Nutrition Facts take into account the cornmeal that cover the frozen dough balls as shipped from the MM commissary and also the cornmeal added at the bench. I also don't know at what point the workers at the Jacksonville Beach, FL MM location (who gave me the set of dough ball weights I requested) actually weighed the dough balls, and whether they brushed the cornmeal off of the dough balls before weighing.

In addition to the above factors, the commercial dough rounding equipment that MM uses at its commissary has operating tolerances that result in slight variations in actual dough ball weight. For example, in the article at http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2010/05/31/story3.html?page=6 that discusses the Papa John's commissary operation, the dough ball weight variation is +/- one-quarter ounce. We also shouldn't forget that the MM Nutrition Facts in the case of pizzas and other baked items of interest to us in this thread are based on weights after baking. Unfortunately, MM does not give baked weights of their baked items, only serving size (e.g., a slice or order size) and number of servings (e.g., number of slices for the three sizes of pizzas). That means that one must either conduct bake tests to try to determine the losses during baking or estimate such losses.

Peter