My favorite pizza is hands down from Mellow Mushroom. Pacific Rim and Holy Shiitake are two of my favorite. I’ve made various Mellow Mushroom “copycat” recipes, all of which were very tasty, but after tweaking it to fit my taste buds desires, I have perfected what is now my go to pizza crust!

First off, get a pizza stone and preheat your oven with the stone inside at 550 degrees for at least an hour before baking. I’ve also made this pizza in our pellet smoker (which I highly recommend), but the oven works just fine.

Ok, let’s put on our pizza hats and make some dough! Start off by warming up some water, which needs to be between 100-110 degrees F; warm enough to activate the yeast, but not too warm or you’ll kill the poor suckers. I do this by warming up some water in my kettle, then mixing with filtered faucet water until it reaches 110 degrees (adding in the molasses and oil will lower the temp just a bit, so I like to start on the higher end).

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In a small bowl, mix together the water, olive oil and molasses. Make sure to add the olive oil first, then the molasses, so the oil will act as a lubricant and the molasses won’t stick to the measuring spoon.

Add in the yeast packets, give it a gentle stir to make sure it all gets wet, then let the yeast proof for at least 5 minutes. You’ll be able to tell when it’s ready because it will look like a very fluffy puff ball!

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While the yeast is proofing, mix together the flour, wheat gluten, and salt in a stand mixer. Make a well, and pour in the liquid mixture and combine on slow, using the dough hook. Scrape down the sides with a flat spatula, if needed. After combined, let the stand mixture run on low-med speed for 10 minutes. Work that dough!

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When it’s finished, place the dough in a greased bowl, lightly dust with flour, then cover with a tea towel and let it rise in the frig for several hours. You can even leave it overnight if needed, or, if you want to speed up the process, simply let it rise at room temperature for 2 hours (I’ve done both).

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After it’s doubled in size, divide the dough into two pieces. You can use a kitchen scale if you want to make sure you have 2 equal portions, however, I leave it up to my eye balls to approximate.

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I save one ball for later by wrapping it in a tight ball in some plastic wrap, lined with sprinkles of cornmeal.

Place the dough on a surface dusted with cornmeal and begin to roll it into a nice round shape. Easiest way to complete this is by picking up the dough and letting gravity help stretch it out as your turn it in a circle, like a steering wheel. Drive that dough to circle completion!

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Place the crust on parchment paper, which I recommend cutting as close as you can to the crust (I’ve had the parchment paper catch on fire before… no bueno). Then if you want an extra cheesy crust, wrap some cheese stick around the edges (we used pepper jack cheese sticks cut them in half longways).

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Toppings! We took two of our favorite pizzas (Buffalo Chicken and Pacific Rim) and combined them for ultimate yumness. We loaded up our pizza like this: barbecue sauce base, shredded chicken, diced pineapple, caramelized onions, pickled jalapeños, applewood bacon and shredded mozzarella cheese.

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After your pizza is loaded up, slide it on the pizza stone and let it cook for 7-12 minutes. Keep a close eye on it, when it reaches your preferred crispy golden color, it is ready!

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After it was done baking, we topped it with Franks hot wing sauce and brushed garlic butter on the crust.

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Yum. Try and let it cool just a bit before devouring. 😋🍕

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