Automation

The weather has turned hot again and I finally got round to firing my beehive to make bread again. M wife planned a menu of Otah, roast chicken, cream of asparagus soup, sweet potatoes and a beef stew to be slow cooked for tomorrow's breakfast.

I had intended to make fougasse today but ended up making 2 batards, 2 fougasses and a ciabatta. I started the fire at about 4 pm and after 3o minutes of fanning,  the sloth in me decided that enough was enough and I brought out an electric fan to blow air into the beehive oven. It certainly worked better than my manual fanning.

A good first attempt

Today was my first attempt at free form loaves in the Beehive. It was a very hot sunny day and it did not look like it was going to rain. At 2pm, I fired up the oven and tried out the Otah recipe from Mrs Leong Yee Soo's cookbook. It was so hot in the oven that the banana leaves singed in a couple of minutes. When I opened the banana leaf wrapping, it was moist as if it was steamed in the leaf. I would have love it a little more dry but it looked as if the leaf was going to give way soon. The one in the steel tray was a little more to my liking but we forgot to line the tray with banana leaf. It would have been perfect with the aroma of the leaf.

I decided to repeat a foccacia as the oven was not big enough to accomodate 3 loaves on the hearth. This time round, the foccacia baked in a steel roaster did a lot better.

Next came the finale. By then, the sky had turned ominously dark and I was really afraid that I'd have to shove out the coals and cover the oven. This would have been a disaster as I was not sure if the plastic canvas can stand the heat of the oven. Fortunately the sky brightened up again.

The charcoals were shoved out, followed by a good brushing of the hearth to clear away the remaining dust. Next, a wet rag was used to mop the oven to clear away any remaining ash. I was a little apprehensive that the hearth will crack but all I could see was the little bit of moisture evaporating in the high heat. The loaves were loaded into the oven on the back of a tray.

The oven spring in the beehive was tremendous. It was much greater than those baked in my other ovens. My only disappointment was that the crust was only golden brown. I would have loved them a little redder and glossier.

Foccacia

Today was the big day for baking with my new toy. The main objective was to try out foccacia and I selected the basic foccacia recipe from Carol Field's book on Foccacia. I used Gold Medal Unbleached AP Flour. It is a waste of charcoal to fire up the oven just to make bread. We decided to cook lunch with the oven. My wife decided on a lemon garlic recipe from Williams' Sonoma Essentials of Roasting which I had borrowed from the library the day before. After sending my daughter for her classes, it was a mad rush to the supermarket to get all the required ingredients. By the time I came back, I was faced with the task of setting up the fire, preparing the dough and the topping. However, this had to wait because breakfast must come first!!

After my daily dose of newspaper and coffee was sated, I swung into action by starting the fire in a flower pot outside the house. This was the only time where smoke is generated from the firestarter which contains wax. After transferring the smouldering charcoal into the oven, I plied on some more and started fanning the oven like a satay-man. I used an old aluminum tray, fanning the oven in a vertical motion which looks as if I am offering incense from the side view. My wife and I thought that the oven made our house look like a temple and now with my fanning action, I certainly look like I was worshipping a deity.

I had read from Hamelman that the ancient Romans worshiped Fornax, the goddess of the hearth or fireplace. (If you look up Wikipedia, Fornax was the goddess of bread and baking). It is interesting that bread is inextricably linked to life. The oven is linked to fertility and today we have phrases like 'a bun in the oven' for example. Even in anatomy of the womb, parts of it is named Fornix which is from the Goddess of the Hearth again.

After the fire was big enough, I pushed out the coals to the the back of the oven in a semi-circular arc. The foccacia was topped with my favorite laksa pesto and bell peppers. I used the 3 terracotta roasters that came with the oven and made the mistake of putting all 3 into the oven at the same time. I faced some difficulty adjusting their placement inside the oven and as a result, some parts of the breads were burnt at the bottom. In retrospect, I should not have baked such a large quantity.

The chicken could have been better had it been marinaded a little longer. The roasted tomatoes with Sumac was delightful. I was introduced to this dish when I was invited to lunch at my friend's house. It was a spice that I have not heard of before so I was very happy to learn something new that day.

Today's bake showed that I have a long way to go before I can orchestrate the kind of cooking session that my friend executed. There are so many factors to watch out for. Next time, I'd definitely have to be more diligent in my planning.

A new toy

Do dreams come true in real life? Perhaps only the Divine knows the answer and sometimes they do come true. Unfortunately for most of us, we do not know what is really good for us. I was told that if the Divine gave us everything we wished for, there would be an excess of firemen, bus-drivers or any occupation that a kid think is 'cool'.

Ever since I started baking, I have always dreamt of doing it the traditional way in a wood fired oven. After reading Dan Wing and Kiko Denzer, the idea of baking in a wood fired oven was so enticing that I even toyed with the idea of flying to Australia to take a course in baking bread in wood fired ovens just for the experience. However, this remained a dream with my limited resources.

One day, out of the blue, I received an email from a fellow baker who bake breads out of a wood fired beehive oven. Needless to say, I accepted the invitation to see the oven in action without hesitation. The foccacias and bread that came out from the oven was exceptional. It was the kind of bread that I'd have loved to bake and eat. I was amazed by my friend's passion in baking bread and culinary talents which exceeded mine in all counts.

My friend told me that there was still one more oven left sitting in the warehouse. After almost half a year later, the oven is finally sitting in my front yard. The months were spent on indecision, procrastination and anxiety about whether the oven will survive the move. Finally, I opted for the lowest cost solution in siting and housing my oven. Instead of getting a contractor to do up a lean-to extension in my backyard, I opted for a wrought iron stand and a parasol. I will be fabricating an aluminum cover to keep the oven out of the rain. The canvass cover that came with the oven was clearly insufficient for our climate.

This weekend, I finally got to fire up the oven. This was neccessary to season the oven and drive out the moisture in the walls. I got a lot of advice from my kindly friend. The week before, I went down to Temple Street and picked up an ash scraper, a pair of charcoal tongs, a brush for clearing the ash. It was exciting firing up the oven. My wife took the opportunity to pop in chicken to roast since she was in the process of preparing lunch. I couldn't wait for next week to bake some foccacias and pizzas.