Backyard Bread Oven

(Page 4 of 4)

November/December
Cathy Wilson 
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Gently place a risen bread loaf on your peel (the shovel-like tool for moving bread; for information on how to make your own peel, visit www.Grit.com). Put the peel into the oven and with one sharp jerk forward, slide your bread right onto the hot bricks. Repeat with all your loaves (see Figure 5). Close the door, using the wet towel as a seal. Let bread bake according to your recipe, but pay attention with your nose and intuition to know when it’s done.

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You will be tempted to cut into your loaves immediately, but let them sit and cool for 10-15 minutes. Your bread finishes baking as it cools. Now you can cut it or tear it, add butter or other toppings, and enjoy crisp-crusty European bread, fresh and perfumed, from your own adobe oven.

Cooking other foods

You can cook anything in your oven, including meats and vegetables, pies and pizzas. For pizza, prepare your pies to put into the hot oven right after you scuffle out the ashes; don’t soak the oven. For meats and vegetables, put in a covered pot after the soak. Remove the cover the last 15 or 20 minutes. Cook pies in a pie tin, but try to avoid fruit spilling over onto the brick floor. Of course, anything you wish to cook in the oven has to fit through the door.

Maintaining your oven

Cover the oven during rain or snow. If you build an open-sided shed around your oven, it can last for years. If food sticks to the oven floor, you may need to scrape it out once in a while.

Cathy Wilson teaches art and writing in a juvenile correctional facility in Utah. She has written several books on alternative health and education. She and her husband – and sundry children – live and garden on three acres in the high desert.

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  • OkieT 4/29/2009 6:02:13 AM

    When I read the magazine article about how to build a bread oven, it said that for instructions to build a peel to come to the website, but I can't find those instructions. What am I missing?

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