With our new house, I finally became the proud owner of a wood-fired oven in the garden. I had been dreaming of this for such a long time! Baking your own bread, and doing it properly in an oven that was heated with wood beforehand.
The installation took place as part of the garden landscaping, although the garden landscaper didn’t do the work. My husband built the foundation, and then a stove setter installed the oven.
The masonry foundation:
Now plastered:
Then brick lintels were placed on top:
And finally, the oven was installed (it was a kit from Kandern Feuerfest):
On top, granite slabs were added, and the work surface next to the oven now also has a granite slab that we had cut to size.
After a few days, the oven was cured. This meant starting slowly with small loads of wood until it was possible to use the full amount, making the oven fully operational. This is a process that takes several days:
Finally, we were able to use the oven for the first time! Since I didn’t have any sourdough starter yet, we baked a bread using ready-made sourdough (which can no longer be used as a leavening agent, but only adds flavor) and a ciabatta:
We were already very impressed. You can always use the residual heat for all kinds of slow-cooked dishes:
By now, we have become pros. Whether venison leg, layered meat, rabbit, or goulash — there is always something we put into the oven after baking bread, and without any extra effort, we have wonderfully tender meat dishes after a few hours or overnight.
Of course, you need to upgrade your equipment:
A bread peel and a fire rake with a brush to clean the baking chamber after heating. We knew that we would need these.
The installation took place as part of the garden landscaping, although the garden landscaper didn’t do the work. My husband built the foundation, and then a stove setter installed the oven.
The masonry foundation:
Now plastered:
Then brick lintels were placed on top:
And finally, the oven was installed (it was a kit from Kandern Feuerfest):
On top, granite slabs were added, and the work surface next to the oven now also has a granite slab that we had cut to size.
After a few days, the oven was cured. This meant starting slowly with small loads of wood until it was possible to use the full amount, making the oven fully operational. This is a process that takes several days:
Finally, we were able to use the oven for the first time! Since I didn’t have any sourdough starter yet, we baked a bread using ready-made sourdough (which can no longer be used as a leavening agent, but only adds flavor) and a ciabatta:
We were already very impressed. You can always use the residual heat for all kinds of slow-cooked dishes:
By now, we have become pros. Whether venison leg, layered meat, rabbit, or goulash — there is always something we put into the oven after baking bread, and without any extra effort, we have wonderfully tender meat dishes after a few hours or overnight.
Of course, you need to upgrade your equipment:
A bread peel and a fire rake with a brush to clean the baking chamber after heating. We knew that we would need these.
I don’t even have a bowl large enough for that much dough – well, I could have bought a bread trough instead of the stand mixer.
But rye dough is so sticky, I’m actually quite glad I don’t have to knead it by hand.
cschiko: I have several people to give bread to, and the rest gets frozen. At the moment, though, the excitement of trying something new is still there, and often the bread hardly lasts two days.
But rye dough is so sticky, I’m actually quite glad I don’t have to knead it by hand.
cschiko: I have several people to give bread to, and the rest gets frozen. At the moment, though, the excitement of trying something new is still there, and often the bread hardly lasts two days.
Climbee schrieb:
What really caught us off guard: with my Kitchen Aid, we didn’t really get far with bread baking. It’s actually quite a robust stand mixer, but the maximum dough capacity for this machine is 1kg (2.2 lbs) – which is just enough for one loaf. You don’t really preheat an oven just for one loaf; it has to be worth it, and both the Kitchen Aid and the baker reach their limits.
The Kitchen Aid can only run for 10 minutes at a time – and that’s about what you need for one loaf. If you want to bake 5 or more loaves, the little machine really struggles. And so does the baker. This means that the dough has to be made separately for each loaf.
Quite a lot of effort. Hardly acceptable timewise.
So we started looking for a dough kneading machine (DKM). At first, I was very optimistic. During the corona-related closure of many pizzerias, surely one could find a used DKM! Well, yes and no. But not necessarily what we wanted. Eventually, it became clear that the mixing bowl should be removable, so you can work with two and easily make two types of bread without much hassle.
Most pizzeria machines are already out of the question because their bowls are fixed.
Then the bowl had to be big enough for the dough to be left to proof inside. For 5–6kg (11–13 lbs) of dough, you need a machine sized for 10–12kg (22–26 lbs) dough.
In the end, there was only the Häussler DKM left—either the one with a 14kg (31 lbs) or 18kg (40 lbs) dough capacity. The price difference wasn’t significant, so we went with the bigger one! The one with two bowls and the matching cover hood, so we could start baking right away!
We were very lucky to find a used machine that exactly met our needs. These machines hold their value extremely well, so my new treasure is already of age—18 years old. But it still looks almost new:
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The picture above shows the machine’s debut last weekend. To test it, we brought 10kg (22 lbs) of flour (the stated max capacity) and mixed it with water there. The machine ran smoothly, and we drove home with a full dough bowl, in which only 9kg (20 lbs) of flour were mixed with water—but even that was quite a lot!
Somehow, I couldn’t just throw away the lump of flour, so I made yeast dough from it. I set aside a bit for fresh Sunday rolls, some Bohemian dumplings for dinner, and the rest was sweet yeast dough. The result is shown above. In the end, it was about 15kg (33 lbs) of yeast dough, and I baked like crazy (in the regular oven, there was no time left to preheat the wood-fired oven).
One tray of crumb cake and about 150 yeast buns—then I threw in the towel, and the rest was frozen in portions. I guess we now have yeast dough stocked up for the entire extended family for the next two years...
And then, of course, bread had to be baked with it. A bread baking day requires a day of preparation. By now, I’m a proud owner of various home-cultivated sourdough starters (my husband always teases me: “So, what are your pets up to?”), and sourdough bread needs to be prepared. So on Monday, I started the work, and yesterday was the big baking day!
This time it was pumpkin crust and a rye bread with three-stage fermentation (makes it especially digestible).
Finally, the new machine was put to proper use!
It really makes a difference whether you have to make dough for each loaf separately or just make 5kg (11 lbs) of dough at once! It’s so much faster and a breeze for the machine. My poor little Kitchen Aid would have given up with creaking sounds.
Final proofing in proofing baskets (or, due to lack of baskets, in various bowls):
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Shortly before loading into the oven:
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Finally, the oven is full!
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And after an hour, the breads are ready:
[ATTACH alt="IMG_20200818_142355.jpg"]50702[/ATTACH] [ATTACH alt="IMG_20200713_141346.jpg"]50698[/ATTACH]
Now the oven just needs a final plastering and it will be finished.
Pizza can of course be made too, but it requires higher temperatures than bread baking and the embers are kept inside the oven chamber. My brother is the great pizza baker, and I’ll share pictures from the next family pizza session!
Do the villagers come by, by the way?
H
hampshire19 Aug 2020 15:22I love "Tim Taylor" moments! Over-the-top enthusiasm with full commitment and cheerfully dealing with the consequences – the TKM definitely won’t be the last purchase.
That’s life. I like it.
To everyone asking "why?" my counter-question is "why ask 'why'?"
That’s life. I like it.
To everyone asking "why?" my counter-question is "why ask 'why'?"
P
pffreestyler20 Aug 2020 08:31It’s surprising to see this coming from you, @hampshire. A call for excessive consumption, even though you usually highlight your green thumb. But seriously, that’s a great piece of equipment. I would definitely take one myself, as I love homemade bread. For us, though, the combination of a Thermomix and an oven will be enough. Pizza is made using a pizza ring on a kettle grill. The taste is almost professional quality. I can recommend it to anyone.