Wood Fired Pizza

 Saturday there was that yellow orb in the sky that we haven't seen for months. I decided to seize the opportunity, I got up early and set to making bread, then did my chores and lit the earth oven. 

I then tended it as I went about getting some gardening jobs (potting on far too many tomatoes and peppers), and invited some friends for lunch. Not much notice but it felt like we needed to grab this opportunity to worship the sun for a few hours. 

Pizza From The Earth Oven

 I've built a lot of cool things in my time, but one of my favourite projects is the pizza oven. 

My main love it is how much the children love it. You can tell they adore the fact they built it, know how to repair it and make fires in there about once every few weeks to toast marshmallows. It's just a natural way of cooking but somehow cleverer than that. 

Brick Arch Former

 It's not been dry enough to do much on the cob oven, it needs more time to dry out (although I have done more since the last post).

So my eldest daughter and I decided to make a wooden former for the arch over the entrance, a nice simple project we could do together. 

The Base - Earth Oven Part 4

Although we had some cob bricks made we had nowhere to put them!

I had dug out an area and filled it with hardcore but as I knew the oven would weigh a fair bit I decided to use some concrete here - hopefully the only bit. I lined the bottom of the footing with some left over plastic from our polytunnel and made a frame out of some left over fencing timber from earlier in the year. 

Cob Party - 12 Children And Lots Of Mud - Earth Oven Part 3

 I'm a big fan of learning through doing - I'm very much a kinesthetic learner. So the idea of making this earth oven harder for myself doesn't really phase me. Maybe it should though. But I've decided to make the base out of cob as well! 

Then the other day a couple of friends were struggling with childcare (school hasn't started back yet but lots of holiday clubs are already finished), so I said I'd take them all in. And, with my wife, my friend adn her 4 children said they'd come over for a bit of fun.

So at it's peak we had 12 children here for a bit of cob making! The base wasn't ready so it was just for learning to use the materials. 

Cob Oven

We were lucky enough to be invited to a friend's for tea the other night.

They cooked some amazing pizza in this cob oven they had built themselves as a family.