Cob Oven: Let the Baking Begin!

Memorial Day weekend was such a bust weatherwise, but we were determined to get out there and try our new cob pizza oven. We're hoping to put it to good use this summer, but thought a trial run would be a good idea before we started inviting people over. While it's not completely finished (still needs a decorative layer and a door), it's definitely operational (with a little trial and error and a lot of pizza dough).

Mike preps the oven (ie: lights a fire, removes the hot coals and sweeps the ash out).

Test #1: a small piece of dough (we put cornmeal on the oven floor so that it wouldn't stick).

It was actually quite tasty (albeit a little on the crunchy side).

Test #2: Pizza!

While it looks beautiful, the oven was not hot enough so I ended up finishing the baking in the oven inside.

Mike rebuilt the fire (no photo, but imagine fire), cleans it out again and rechecks the oven temp with our new infrared thermometer.

Test #3: At 1000 degrees, we figured it was hot enough to try again (we waited til it cooled down a little).

Since we don't yet have a pizza paddle, this time we baked on the pan (with cornmeal between dough and pan) for ease of getting the pizza in and out of the oven.

Third time's a charm! At this point I was too full to eat any of it, but it did make for a very nice lunch the next day.