Saturday, March 10, 2012

It could be so easy

Check out Heather's cool, little oven on Wheels. http://squirrelbread.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/pizza-whole-wheat-baguette-bragging-rights/

 Long shot

 Close up

 Detail

Sometimes we seen to agonize over our oven designs and end up not having any oven because of our twisted thinking. Really, it could be so easy, and the cost of Heather's oven is negligible. Probably the wagon is the most expensive component, but maybe you could get a kid to give up theirs if you promise the child some whole wheat bread fortified with soy protein.
The point is, Heather has a simple to build, wood-fired oven that she can move around, and the oven looks like it will bake great pizza. Note the elegant (no joke), self-supporting roof.
One of my local supermarkets just bought a whole bunch of new shopping carts, and I keep thinking that I could build an oven on top of one, but that's a future project.

Indoor Bread Baking

Yes, parchment paper is the easiest method of transferring dough to preheated Dutch ovens, but yesterday I brought my wooden peel into the house, and it worked just fine. I spread some cornmeal on the peel, turned the dough that had been rising in the basket onto it and then slid the dough off onto the Dutch oven base. It worked flawlessly. I had plenty of room, and it was a lot easier than taking aim and trying to plunk down the dough into the center of the bull's eve. And I didn't burn myself.