Tuesday, September 23, 2008

BREAD!

Finally some bread out of this oven!
As you can see, after being properly fired the oven has burnt all of the soot off the walls and ceiling of the oven.
(You might notice that some bricks have fallen from the ceiling, these are the keystones (!) that I made too short) but fortunately i filled the void with concrete which is acting as the keystone. I would be lying if I said this whole thing wasn't taking a few years off my life. Soon when i have a period of time when the oven is not in operation for a while (and thus cool) I will climb in and fill the rest of the void with more high temp concrete.

I made these breads in my basement "workshop" and then carried trays of the baskets (in which they were rising) up and out to the oven. The loaves I made had the same base dough (a 75/25 whole wheat dough) one with soaked mixed grains and one with raisins and walnuts.

In they went, 9 at a time, on the large peel I made, It worked wonderfully. I haven't made tools that are long enough yet to clean out all the way to the back so I put nine in and then 6 more and then two on each side with the small peel that I showed in an earlier post.
Even by the time I got to putting the final loaves in I could see that the first were springing nicely and after about 40 minutes I pulled from the oven these really beautiful loaves.































The Multigrain















The Raisin and Walnut




I don't know if it is brick oven or if it is more the idea of the brick oven but I've never made bread I thought looked nicer than these. and it was delicious. and I suppose that is, of course, because we eat not just food but ideas; and this idea is pretty tasty.

At any rate I took this bread into town and managed to sell it all in a matter of minutes.

5 comments:

Adrienne Celt said...

Mark! This is amazing! Congratulations!

Also, Dave & I were wondering...you sold out within minutes of going downtown? Were there a bunch of downtrodden bread shoppers milling around the streets? Or is your bread just that good?

kate said...

That is so amazing. I'm smiling, just thinking of it.

maddie v.h.s. said...

no effing way! i'm so proud!

Amy said...

Hurrah! So exciting. Very well done. I'll have to come visit you and your bread soon. :)

Nora Rocket said...

Nice work! They do look beautiful!