Why Italian Ovens are Round

If you decide to build a wood-fired oven, you'll have to decide if your oven will be round or rectangular. This post from the Forno Bravo website gives lots of reasons why your oven should be round. You may not agree, but there's some provocative reading here.

Round oven under construction on rectangular base.

Back To Guatemala

At the end on the month I'll be leaving once again for my yearly visit to Guatemala where I eagerly anticipate hooking up with old friends.
I go with the group Masons On A Mission (only a couple of us are masons, and I'm not one of them), and we build energy efficient stoves for the Mayas. Not only are the stoves very efficient, but they vent to the outdoors so that the Mayas will not be breathing suffocating smoke in their homes. Without these stoves, the Mayas prepare food on their three stone fires, indoors, resulting in many respiratory illnesses.

Ring Of Fire

If you need just a little push over the edge, than this photo by Will Brinton should encourage you to build your own wood-fired oven and bake the best pizzas you've never had.

                                                        Will Brinton      

Best Bialys

BIALYS (pronounced bee-ah-lees)

I’m not really sure where bialys originated, but my guess would be Poland because that country has a large city called Bialystok. Many Jews emigrated from Poland to America, and some of these émigrés had superb baking skills.

 On New York City’s Lower East Side, I know of a bakery that specializes in the production of Bialys; these are chewy rolls with flattened or concave centers into which chopped onion and poppy seeds have been mushed. To my knowledge and taste, this bakery in New York is the only place where authentic bialys are made. I’ve eaten bialys from other American cities, but they were really dismal breads. Your best chance for a good bialy will be in your kitchen after you learn how to make them.

The essence of a good bialy is its chewiness, and one way to produce chewiness is through the use of high gluten flour. In my book Bread In Time, I outline that technique. Another way to get a chewy texture is with sourdough starter, and I’m pretty sure the traditional bialy was made that way and not with high gluten flour. The baker can create sourdough, while high gluten flour is a specialty flour that most likely wasn’t even available when bialys were developed.

You may very well want to double the ingredients in this recipe, which of course, will double the yield. I make this suggestion because bialys are a special treat, and they’ll disappear quickly. Do not double the amount of starter you use. One quarter cup is enough. 

YIELD: approx. 12-3 1/2” diameter) bialys

Day one

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups cool water 

1/4 cup sourdough starter 

1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt                                                                                                   

3 1/2 cups all purpose unbleached white flour

Procedure:

Combine all ingredients into a shaggy mixture using a heavy wooded spoon or a dough whisk. Cover the bowl with a plate and let proof overnight about 12-17 hours. Room temperature should be about 70ºF.

Day two

Ingredients:

Flour for dusting

1/2 cup chopped onions (use caramelized onions for the very best bialys)

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

1/2 teaspoon salt

Procedure:

Your dough should have expanded overnight, and now turn it out on your floured work surface. With floured hands, work the dough a bit by folding it in on itself into thirds. Do this several times, and then cover the dough with a cloth letting it rest about 15 minutes. After the rest period, flatten the dough by hand and then roll it out with a rolling pin to a uniform thickness of about 1/2”. 

Cut out the bialys. I use an empty 3 1/2” diameter juice can to punch out the bialys by bearing down firmly. If you prefer, you can cut the dough into 12 equal chunks, and with your hands, press each bialy into shape. Cover them again with a cloth and set them in a warm place to rest and rise for 30 minutes. While you’re waiting, chop the onions and get out the salt and the poppy seeds.

In the top center of each bialy deposit a pinch of chopped onions, some poppy seeds and a tiny bit of salt. With your fist, mush these ingredients into each bialy. Don’t be afraid to mush down hard. It’s important to really press the ingredients into the center of the bialy, and if the dough tears, don’t worry about it. If you’re not diligent about this, the center of your bialy will rise in the oven and you will have made a roll, not a bialy. That’s not exactly a bad thing to do, but it wasn’t part of your plan. 

Bake directly on the floor of your oven with a small fire to the back or side. Adjust your fire accordingly and move the bialys around to get them to bake evenly. 

Ideally the centers should still be flattened when the bialys emerge from the oven, but this will not always be the case. Don’t worry; they’ll still be delicious even if they rise like rolls.

                                                      

Keeping it dry

If you stucco your oven with surface bonding cement you can expect your dome to stay "reasonably" dry. However, that's really not good enough. If your earthen dome should get wet, it really doesn't take much for it to revert back to its natural state, and that would be "mud."
For maximum protection, consider a roof, and it can be as primitive as the roof over the Siberian oven, but by far, the simplest roof I know how to make is to drape corrugated metal roofing over the dome and fasten the four corners with bungee cables tied into the oven base.

                                                                      

 Oven stuccoed with surface bonding cement

                                       

Simple roofing system

Easiest roofing system

Amanda's Oven

Following up on the last post, I want to add some photos just to give an idea as to how much work was required to complete the oven. It was truly a group effort, and had not everyone really put out, then the oven would not have turned out as well as it did.
Keeping organized and having all the supplies right on the building site when we needed them helped immensely.

Completed Oven

But to get here, check out some of the construction photos.

                                     

                                 

                                                                              photo Amanda Slamm                                     

                                           

                                                                                   photo Amanda Slamm 

                                    

                                                                                    photo Amanda Slamm                                              

                                                 

Favorite Oven

I just completed an oven with a group of friends that quickly became my favorite oven.
A 31.5" diameter baking surface is big enough for all the breads and pizzas most of us would care to bake with one firing. 6" of perlite insulation above, around and below provide ample insulation to hold in the heat. Finally and equally important, I love the clean, minimalist look.
Thanks to Amanda, Reuben, Paula, Abby and Fang for helping to build this earth oven.

Life before mud

Mud

Hands

First firing before dome insulation

Completed oven

Masons Who Build Wood-Fired Bread Oven

If you still want an oven (of course you do) and you don't want to construct it yourself nor do you want to be purchase a prefab oven, well, there's still hope. Lots of it.
You can hire a mason to build one for you. Yes, your labor cost will be high, but the cost of materials will be less than what you would pay for a prefab oven, so everything sort of evens out.
If you decide to hire a mason, find one who has lots of experience building ovens. You're not looking for a mason who specializes in retaining walls.
I'm going to recommend three masons, two in Maine and one in Massachusetts. Sure there are lots more, but I happen to know the work of these three, and if you hire one of them, I know you'll be pleased.

Pat Manley from Maine building the Sunnyfield Farm Bakery oven

An oven by Martin Pearson from Massachusetts

David Neufeld from Maine

Le Panyol Wood-Fired Ovens

Not everyone really wants to build their own wood-fired oven, but there are great alternatives out there. Maine Wood Heat imports the beautiful le Panyol oven from France. No, they're not inexpensive and you'll have to have someone assemble it for you if you don't have masonry skills, but they are of the highest quality.
You could alternatively hire a mason to build you a custom oven (if you go this route, just make sure you hire a mason with a good track record who has built ovens before), and in a future post, I'll discuss this in some detail. In the meantime, check out the Le Panyol and also visit the Forno Bravo site for more wood-fired ovens.

Le Panyol on wheels

Le Panyol in winter with a copper cover to protect it from the elements

French Rolling Pin

I just started using a French rolling pin, and I couldn't be happier. For years, I had been using the standard American style rolling pin. You know the type, clunky with two handles.

Anyway, the French rolling pin is much easier to handle, and you'll find that you have lots more flexibility when rolling out a dough.
You can find one at a kitchen supply store, and that's where I found mine. However, you can easily find one on line. Breadtopia has them at a very fair price.