Building a Wood-Fired Oven for Bread and Pizza »

The ultimate project for the DIY cook: a chance to construct a working oven, as adjunct to the barbecue, for baking home-made bread and pizza. Have you ever wondered why bread doesn't taste like it used to? Bread with never the chance to develop the crackling deep crust, or capture that aroma of wheat that comes from making bread slowly, and baking it in brick: this book holds the secret. Ovens were invented in the ancient world for one thing only: baking bread. Their design, materials and methods of firing have not changed over millenia. The ovens now working in the Greek countryside -- or which stand ruined in village squares in the Dordogne -- are the same as those that baked bread for Caesar. This ancient technology is within our grasp. The construction of a brick oven in the garden (no fire hazards, no major structural problems, no planning difficulties) is described with the novice builder in mind, the plan based on the author's own oven, running in Devon today. Detailed plans and illustrations are provided. Further chapters describe how to fire and run such ovens, and give guidance on bread and pizzas -- which are ten times better, and tenderer, than any baked in the usual cooker. And there is information on restoring and running old ovens - thousands of which have survived in farmhouses across Britain.