Joanne Chang’s Mushroom and Thyme Brioche Breakfast Pizzas
Written by MasterClass
Last updated: May 28, 2023 • 7 min read
Pastry chef Joanne Chang’s easy breakfast pizza recipe features a pizza crust made from fluffy brioche dough, topped with caramelized onions and mushrooms, and baked until crispy. This unique take on homemade pizza is sure to be a new family favorite.
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About Joanne Chang
Joanne Chang is a Boston-based pastry chef and the co-owner of Flour Bakery. The award-winning pastry chef has a degree with honors in applied mathematics and economics from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Passionate about baking since her college days, Joanne left her consulting job to work in restaurants, eventually opening Flour Bakery in 2000. Since then, she expanded the bakery to eight more locations, opened a Taiwanese-inspired restaurant, won a reality TV cooking competition and a James Beard Award, and wrote five cookbooks.
Despite her long list of accolades, Joanne still delights in the alchemy of baking: simple ingredients that, when combined with the right techniques, transform into something magical. Learn to bake like a pro with Joanne Chang.
What Is a Breakfast Pizza?
A breakfast pizza is a dough-based entrée made with typical breakfast ingredients like bacon bits, bell peppers, breakfast sausage, cream cheese, green onions, hash browns, or scrambled eggs alongside more traditional pizza ingredients like Parmesan or mozzarella cheese. Standard breakfast or brunch fare, you can make breakfast pizza using traditional pizza dough or by shaping brioche or crescent roll dough into rounds.
5 Tips for Making Joanne Chang’s Mushroom and Thyme Brioche Breakfast Pizzas
These breakfast pizzas use brioche dough instead of the typical pizza dough. Brioche isn’t your average bread—it’s enriched with an abundance of eggs and butter, giving the crumb a light, fluffy texture. Here are some tips for making the recipe:
- 1. Know your yeasts. Active dry yeast is a granulated, dehydrated powder commonly sold in individual packets or glass jars. Unopened, it can be shelf-stable for more than a year; once opened, store active dry yeast in the refrigerator for three to four months. Fresh yeast, also known as cake yeast, comes in soft, compressed “cakes,” usually found in the dairy section of most grocery stores. Due to its moisture content (around seventy percent), fresh yeast has a shelf life of about 2 weeks when refrigerated and must be crumbled and proofed (tested to see if it’s active) in tepid water before using.
- 2. Choose the yeast of your choice. Yeast is an important component of breakfast pizza; choosing between active dry yeast vs. fresh yeast comes down to personal preference. Some bakers prefer fresh yeast over dry for a subtle difference in flavor, but others find it indistinguishable. Fresh yeast activates more quickly than dry yeast, so if you use fresh yeast, your brioche may proof faster than listed in Joanne’s recipe instructions. Learn more about proofing bread.
- 3. Chill the butter if necessary. “Room temperature” can mean different things depending on the weather. If your butter is too soft when you add it to your brioche dough, the dough will be very runny (resembling pancake batter), and it will take longer for the butter to absorb. If the dough does not come together, you can chill the entire mixing bowl in the refrigerator for ten to fifteen minutes. If your butter is too cold when added, it will take longer for the dough to come together because it will take longer for the mixer to break down the butter. Too-cold butter is not ideal, but it’s better to err on the side of colder butter than warmer butter.
- 4. Work ahead. You can make both the brioche dough and the mushroom filling for this recipe ahead of time. The brioche dough will keep up to five days in the freezer and one day in the fridge, and the mushroom filling will last four days in the refrigerator. If you make the dough and filling ahead of time, all that’s left is to shape and bake the pizzas when you’re ready.
- 5. Get creative. Joanne’s recipe for brioche pizza dough is only a starting point—don’t be afraid to unleash your creativity. Try layering on fillings such as tomato, bacon, ham, or mozzarella or cheddar cheese; consider cracking an egg into each bun.
Joanne Chang’s Mushroom and Thyme Brioche Breakfast Pizza Recipe
makes
6 pizza bunsprep time
1 hrtotal time
2 hr 25 mincook time
1 hr 25 minIngredients
For the basic brioche dough:
For the breakfast pizzas:
Notes: This recipe makes twice as much brioche dough as you will need; use the rest of the dough to make Joanne’s sticky buns, brioche au chocolat, or pain aux raisins. Additionally, the total time does not include up to 8 hours and 15 minutes of inactive time.
Make the basic brioche dough:
- 1
In a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine the water, yeast, all-purpose flour, bread flour, sugar, and salt, and mix the ingredients together on low speed.
- 2
Add the eggs one at a time, and then increase the speed slightly.
- 3
Beat the mixture until all flour is incorporated and the dough is a pale yellow, about 3 minutes.
- 4
Beat on low speed once again until the dough comes together in one ball that’s smooth and springy to the touch, about 3–5 minutes. One way to know your dough is ready is the windowpane test: Gently stretch the dough apart with your hands and look for the web-like gluten strands that have developed. You should be able to almost see through it, like a window.
- 5
Once the dough has come together, turn the mixer to medium speed and add the butter piece by piece. Wait for each piece to incorporate before adding the next.
- 6
Continue mixing on low speed for 6–8 minutes and up to 10 minutes, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, until all of the butter is thoroughly mixed in.
- 7
Continue mixing on medium speed for 6–12 minutes, pausing the mixer every few minutes to scrape the dough off the bottom of the bowl and the dough hook. Although the dough may look very wet and runny at first, it will eventually come together in a single stretchy mass as the butter gets absorbed and the gluten develops.
- 8
As the dough starts to look more cohesive, increase the mixer speed to medium-high. In the last few minutes of mixing, the dough should begin to gather together and slap around on the inside of the bowl. When the dough is done, it should be smooth and glossy and hold together as one piece. You should still be able to gently stretch it and see through it (using the windowpane trick mentioned above).
- 9
Divide the dough in half, and tightly cover and freeze the second half (to defrost, place the dough in the refrigerator 24 hours before you’re ready to use it). Use the second half within 5 days, or the yeast will no longer be active. If you plan to use the second half of dough within 1 day, store it, tightly wrapped in plastic, in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it.
- 10
Cover the bowl with the remaining half of the dough tightly with plastic wrap. Place the bowl in the refrigerator, and let the dough proof for at least 6 hours and up to overnight. The goal is for the dough to double in size.
Make the breakfast pizzas:
- 1
Place the basic brioche dough on a baking sheet, and cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap.
- 2
Proof the dough in a warm spot until the dough doubles in size and looks jiggly, about 2 hours.
- 3
Heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- 4
Wash and trim the mushrooms, and place them in a medium bowl.
- 5
Add the onion, garlic, half of the thyme, salt, and pepper to the bowl, and mix until all ingredients combine.
- 6
Spread the topping on an unlined baking sheet, then dot with the butter pieces and bake until the moisture has cooked off, 40–50 minutes.
- 7
Scrape the topping back into the bowl.
- 8
Stir in the cream and vinegar, and mix until they’re combined. You can make the mushroom topping up to 4 days in advance and store it in the refrigerator.
- 9
Shape the brioche dough into a rectangle about 12 inches long by 2 inches wide and 1 inch thick.
- 10
Using a bench scraper or a chef’s knife, cut and weigh out 125-gram portions of the brioche dough (you should have 6 portions).
- 11
Stretch each portion of dough into a circle that’s about 5 inches long.
- 12
Stretch out the inner part of the circle so the center is thin while leaving a rim of thicker dough around the edge (it should resemble a pizza with a thick crust).
- 13
Place the circle on a parchment paper–lined baking sheet, and then repeat this process with the remaining dough. Space each circle a few inches apart from the others on the baking sheet.
- 14
Spread a dollop of crème fraîche in the center of each dough circle, leaving the rim untouched.
- 15
Place a spoonful of mushrooms on top of the crème fraîche, then evenly sprinkle the cheese and the remaining thyme on top of each circle.
- 16
Bake the buns until they’re a medium golden brown along their edges, 30–35 minutes. Allow the buns to cool on the baking sheet set on a wire rack for 10–15 minutes before serving.
- 17
Store the buns in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days. Reheat the buns in an oven set to 300 degrees Fahrenheit until warm.
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