This wood-fired pizza, shaped like khachapuri, has a cheesy crust stuffed with cremini mushrooms, crispy bacon, and datterini tomatoes. It’s then kissed with olive oil and finished with burrata, making it your new favorite pizza!
35 Years of Professional Pizza Experience
Pizza sauce runs through my veins as a certified Pizzaiola with decades of professional expertise. My family has had two pizzerias that have lasted almost two decades, so I know my way around a pizza.
I make pizza every single day. For me, it is that desert island food. I’m like the Picasso of pizza dough, as there’s not much I won’t pizzafy. Whether you make it by hand or using a stand mixer, let me show you how easy it is to make!
Cheesy Mushroom Bacon Pizza Boat Ingredients
The base of this pizza starts with my viral hand-tossed pizza dough, which is allowed to cold ferment for 3 days in the fridge. That’s crucial to having the best flavor, crust, and texture!
- 300g Pizza Dough balls
- Sliced Mushrooms
- Crispy Bacon
- Cheese: whole milk, low moisture, freshly shredded mozzarella, and burrata
- Datterini Tomatoes
- Bench Flour: Bench flour is 80% regular flour and 20% semolina. Semolina has a better texture, allowing the dough to slide off more easily.
Equipment Needed To Make Pizza in a Pellet Smoker
Seriously, this smoker/grill is an investment and worth it! And the pizza oven blows me away every single time I use it. And y’all know me – I’m a pizza snob. It’s AS GOOD as the commercial wood-fired ovens I’ve used.
Prepare The Pellet Smoker
The key to a successful pizza, baking it and getting it off of the stone, is that the stone itself is hot enough.
- Set up the YS640 with the pizza oven accessory installed. Turn the YS640 on and set the temperature to 600F. Close the lid and let it heat up for at least 30 minutes.
What is Khachapuri?
It comes from the country of Georgia and is a cheese-filled bread, shaped like a boat, with a runny egg baked on top. To eat it, you’d tear off the edges of the ‘boat’, dip it into the crust, and swirl it into the gooey hot cheese. They are truly delicious!
This pizza is in the style of it based on the shape and stuffed cheesy crust.
How to Shape Pizza
- Shape the dough leaving the rim or cornicione untouched. You will start from the middle of the dough and push towards the edge, pressing down and around. By doing this, you’re going the air to the crust but still keeping it in the pizza dough. Don’t stretch your dough super thin, either. It will be thin, and light will shine through (called the windowpane effect), but the dough is still strong.
- Shape the dough into an oval or football shape. Once shaped, place it on a pizza peel coated with bench flour. You can adjust the shape if need be.
- Add some of the mozzarella to the middle of the dough and almost to the edges on the sides.
- Pull the long sides of the pizza dough up and over (about an inch) the cheese and press it down slightly to seal. Do not stuff the long ends. If need be, re-adjust the pizza’s shape.
- Add your sliced mushrooms, bacon, datterini tomatoes, and a few tablespoons of the sauce. Top with more mozzarella. Give the pizza a final drizzle of olive oil before launching it into the pizza oven.
How to Launch Pizza Into an Oven
- Give the pizza a final shake on the pizza paddle to ensure it isn’t sticking. Add more bench flour under any stuck part and adjust the shape if needed.
- Stick the pizza paddle about 3/4 of the way into the pizza oven and launch it onto the hot stone. You can do it in 1 launch or a few. Having this many toppings, I tend to do a few shorter jerks to launch it off.
How To Use a Turning Peel for Pizza
- While the pizza starts to bake, hold the turning peel near the flames for a few seconds to warm up.
- After about 15-30 seconds, one side of your pizza dough starts to puff up (it’s developing the cornicione). Stick your warm peel under the pizza dough in a circle (GENTLY)to help loosen it from the stone.
- Pull the peel partially out on one side, lifting it at an angle and turning the pizza in a circular motion. Give the pizza a good quarter-to-half turn.
- Let it cook for another 30 seconds and turn the pizza again.
- You’ll find you’re turning your pizza frequently toward the end of the cooking time.
What is Leoparding on Pizza?
Leoparding is the leopard-like pattern on pizza crusts baked at the correct temperature with the perfect hydration. It’s characteristic of Neapolitan-style pizza.
Leoparding happens when the heat from the top of the oven hits the raised parts (bubbles) of your crust. These bubbles cook and darken more than the rest of the crust, and they often “pop.”
The pizza isn’t burnt; on the contrary. These leoparding spots are what you want to see.
How To Finish A Pizza
I could have stopped and served the pizza as-is, but I wanted to zhugh it up a bit.
I tore off bits of burrata and gave it a drizzle of olive oil to finish this masterpiece.
I sliced it in half and then cut each half diagonally, giving the slices a quasi-triangular shape like traditional pizza.
Pizza Boat Substitutions
With this pizza shape, you can add pretty much whatever you want. Already remember the golden rule when it comes to pizza toppings:
“Less is more when it comes to pizza toppings. Yes, it pains my heart to write or say these things. Coming from a Chef that has an entire fridge drawer dedicated to just cheese. You really want to go light on the toppings on this style of pizza as it’s thinner in the middle. The more toppings you add, the likelier it’s to stick in the middle.”
- Veggies: You can add any veggie you want. If you use high-water veggies like squash, cook them first to avoid making your pizza soggy.
- Meat: cooked sausage, pancetta, capicola, and so forth would work.
- Cheese: Do not use pre-packaged cheese. Go with freshly shredded whole-milk, low-moisture mozzarella.
- Khachapuri: In the States, we use a mixture of ricotta, mozzarella, and feta as native cheeses are difficult to find. You’ll also need an egg or two and some herbs sprinkled at the end.
Professional Pizzaiola Tips
- Cold Fermentation: My dough recipe is best when it is cold fermented in the fridge for 48-72 hours.
- No parchment paper is needed for this style of dough. You only need that for a gluten-free or alternative crust dough.
- Rolling Pins: No, never
- Hole In Your Dough: Don’t panic. Squeeze the hole together and close it up. You’re simply patching it like you would say a hole in your jeans.
- What flour should I use?: I ONLY use Le 5 Stagioni 00 flour. You want to use pizza flour. It makes a difference.
- What do you proof your dough in?: For home use, I love these Dough Tray Kits.
- What mixer do you use for your pizza dough?: I LOVE my Bosch Mixer! I can do 12 pounds of dough at a time!
How to Make Pizza in an Oven
- Place one rack on the lower third of your oven. On that place a pizza stone. It’s recommended you use 2 when you bake pizza. Place another rack on the upper third of your oven and place the 2nd pizza stone there. When ready to use, preheat the oven to 550F. If you’ve had the dough in the fridge, bring out to room temperature at least an hour prior to baking. If you use a pizza stone, follow the manufacturer’s instructions on heating that up.
- Prepare the pizza as instructed below on a pizza paddle coated in bench flour.
- Place the pizza onto the bottom pizza stone, close the door and allow it to make for ~8 minutes. Rotate the pizza and cook until the pizza is cooked all the way through.
- Remove from the oven, top with burrata, olive oil, and enjoy.
Cheesy Mushroom Bacon Pizza Boat
This wood-fired pizza, shaped like khachapuri, has a cheesy crust stuffed with cremini mushrooms, crispy bacon, and datterini tomatoes. It’s then kissed with olive oil and finished with burrata, making it your new favorite pizza!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 2-3 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 2 servings/4 slices
- Category: pizza, smoker, bbq, homemade pizza, from scratch pizza, khachapuri style, pizza in the oven
- Method: smoker, bbq, oven
- Cuisine: pizza, smoker, bbq, homemade pizza, from scratch pizza, khachapuri style, pizza in the oven
Ingredients
- 330 grams pizza dough
- 8–12 ounces whole milk low-moisture mozzarella, freshly shredded
- 2–3 cremini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
- 1–2 strips cooked bacon, roughly torn
- 4 datterini tomatoes plus 2-4 tablespoons of sauce
- Olive oil
- 1 large burrata ball
Instructions
- Set up the YS640 with the pizza oven accessory installed. Turn the YS640 on and set the temperature to 600F. Close the lid and let it heat up for at least 30 minutes. When you’re ready to make the pizza, take the temperature of the pizza stone to ensure that it’s up to temp.
- Shape the dough, leaving the rim or cornicione untouched. You will start from the middle of the dough and push towards the edge, pressing down and around. By doing this, you’re going the air to the crust but still keeping it in the pizza dough. Don’t stretch your dough super thin, either. It will be thin, and light will shine through (called the windowpane effect), but the dough is still strong.
- Shape the dough into an oval or football shape. Once shaped, place it on a pizza peel coated with bench flour. You can adjust the shape if need be.
- Add some mozzarella to the dough’s middle and almost to the edges on the sides. Pull the long sides of the pizza dough up and over (about an inch) the cheese and press it down slightly to seal. Do not stuff the long ends. If need be, re-adjust the pizza’s shape.
- Add your sliced mushrooms, bacon, datterini tomatoes, and a few tablespoons of the sauce. Top with more mozzarella. Give the pizza a final drizzle of olive oil before launching it into the pizza oven. Give the pizza a final shake on the pizza paddle to ensure it isn’t sticking. Add more bench flour under any stuck part and adjust the shape if needed. Stick the pizza paddle about 3/4 of the way into the pizza oven and launch it onto the hot stone.
- While the pizza starts to bake, hold the turning peel near the flames for a few seconds to warm up. After about 15-30 seconds, one side of your pizza dough starts to puff up (it’s developing the cornicione). Stick your warm peel under the pizza dough in a circle (GENTLY) to help loosen it from the stone. Pull the peel partially out on one side, lifting on an angle and turning the pizza in a circular motion. Give the pizza a good quarter to half turn. Let it cook for another 30 seconds and turn the pizza again. You’ll find you’re turning your pizza frequently toward the end of the cooking time. This pizza should take roughly 2 minutes. When the pizza crust is puffed and cooked, remove the pizza from the oven and top it.
- Tear the burrata and place the pieces on top of the pizza. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil, and enjoy!
Notes
*time does not include the smoker preheating
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