The Fresh Loaf

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Firing up the WFO for first Pizza of the season

CountryWoodSmoke's picture
CountryWoodSmoke

Firing up the WFO for first Pizza of the season

It’s been a lovely start to the spring season, the weather has been unseasonably warm, so it was about time I fired the wood fired oven up for a quick couple of pizzas for my family.

It’s always difficult after you haven’t fired an oven in anger for a while as it builds up moisture over the winter and everything takes a while longer to heat up.

Still it was a good start to the year with a couple of pepperoni pizzas, but the light fades so quickly, so caught the first pizza in near dark conditions.

I’m looking forward to a great season of eating outdoors, hope you are too.

Cheers

Marcus

http://countrywoodsmoke.wordpress.com/

suave's picture
suave

Why do you have to fire an oven in anger?

janij's picture
janij

Oh so jealous.  My oven is for sale with my house.  I miss it.  Enjoy some pizza for me!!

 

CountryWoodSmoke's picture
CountryWoodSmoke

Is just an expression, just means to get it super hot ready for pizza :)

You can make some really lovely pizza in an indoor oven too, get it really hot with a heavy duty metal baking tray.

I do this quite a lot when it's cold and rainy.

Cheers

Marcus

varda's picture
varda

I made a "brush" fire in mine yesterday just to warm things up.   Hope to bake today.   Nice picture of fire.  -Varda

CountryWoodSmoke's picture
CountryWoodSmoke

Thank you Varda. Hope the baking went well?

Cheers

Marcus

varda's picture
varda

but pretty good.   I posted here.  -Varda

Ruralidle's picture
Ruralidle

Hi Marcus

We had a new wfo delivered at the end of February and enjoyed our first home cooked wfo pizza lunch then - and we didn't need our coats on :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Where on earth did you get it?  Love your simple pie - bet it tasted great.  I love the shape of it the best though.  Rustic is way more cool than boring round!

Ruralidle's picture
Ruralidle

Hi Da

you are correct, the oven is on a moveable stand but it is quite heavy and it takes 2 people to move it safely on anything other than flat, smooth ground.  The fact that it is moveable avoids me having to get permission from our local authority for the construction of a brick oven.  The manufacturer of the oven is a UK firm call Bernito ovens and ours is the largest in their range.

The pizza started out almost round but stuck a little on the peel as I was loading it into the oven.  I have a couple of wooden peels on order that should help avoid that in the future!  As for toppings, I am a great fan of the classic, simple margherita with just tomato sauce (I used San Marzano DOP tomatoes), mozzarella and fresh basil.  The cheese was actually Buffalo smoked Provola which is smoked fresh mozzarella di buffala that I got from a specialist UK online deli  and it gives an added hint of smokiness.  More importantly, the cheese is not as watery as many supermarket varieties.  As for the base, it was a made with my sourdough starter and Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour.  All in all, delicious - especially for a first attempt :) !

As for the wfo, I have made some OK bread and some decent baguettes using it and we have had a couple of meals cooked it that were not pizza.  Indeed, we used it like a bbq yesterday and had steak, chicken and sausages grilled on a tuscan-style grill with salad and roasted potato wedges for dinner - which we could eat outside without coats or jumpers!!!  In the UK - in March - this is amazing but temperatures on our "piazza" (patch of concrete really) were over 22C and our solar panels were making us a lot of cash!

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

for the link.  I'm guessing you could make winter ice cream in it in northern lattitudes.  Very cool.

CountryWoodSmoke's picture
CountryWoodSmoke


I fired up the oven again this afternoon to drive away the moisture built up over the winter and get it ready for a full summer of pizza and wood fired cooking, I also had a play with a couple of pizza recipe ideas, more of which will follow in a later post. But here’s a lovely simple cheese and tomato thick crust pizza, it seemed a shame not to use the oven with this glorious weather.

The oven seems to be working pretty well I’d say………
Cheers
Marcus

http://countrywoodsmoke.wordpress.com/