Playing With the Oven

We just came back from a wonderful weekend at the cabin. There was no one else on Merchants' Row so it was very peaceful and we got quite a bit of work done. And we relaxed: wandering around the site, reading a book, sitting back in the shade with a cool drink, planning future improvements, gazing at the night sky....

Looking east from the hill above "The Lost Vikings Estates".  I love these rolling hills!

Pepper roamed freely along the deserted Merchants' Row

Dirk spent a lot of time climbing up the ladder!


I spent a lot of my time stoking the fire in the newly-built oven beside our cabin. Kataryna built the oven (all by herself?) just before Quad War but  didn't get a chance to fire it up. Why right next to my cabin? Because it's so central and because I said I would help look after it.

I kept the fire going for about 48 hours. The ashes were just barely smoldering in the mornings but came to life again with a bit of coaxing. The two sticks are for pushing burning logs around.

Side and back view of the oven. The clay had a few cracks through which smoke escaped, but most of the structure held up well during this firing. More layers of clay will have to be added next year.

Time to see if this oven can actually be used for baking. I used the "arm test" to estimate temperature. Barely two seconds -- thats a hot oven! Should be good for biscuits....

Lacking the usual biscuit ingredients I did the best I could with commercial pancake mix. It took about 10 minutes to bake them. The back ones were definitely darker than the front ones. Turning the pan 180 degrees halfway through baking would result in more even browning, I suppose....

I broke open one biscuit to check for doneness, and I turned two over to check the bottom. Yes, some were dark brown underneath but still quite edible. The flavor was about what you would expect from something that was supposed to be a pancake....   Looking forward to more experiments with this oven next year!