Notes from my kitchen, in which I bake bread and raise a few other matters
If you know me at all, you’ll know I am big fan of the scale over the measuring cup. Sometimes, though, for whatever reason, you need to know the weight-volume equivalent for a particular ingredient.
The best one-stop resource I’ve found for this information is the searchable USDA Nutrient Database. It contains more foods than you knew existed, and it gives the gram weight of a standard volume or unit (e.g., a cup of nuts or a whole large egg).
Peter Reinhart, author of several wonderful books including The Bread Baker’s Apprentice and Whole Grain Breads, is looking for recipe testers for his new book. If you’re interested, see Peter’s blog for more information.
After another weekend of scooping, packing, stomping, dumping, shoveling, squishing, reaching, lugging, bending, blending, pressing, aching, groaning, and getting yelled at by my daughter for tracking dirt into the house, I’m happy to say my earth oven can now sleep a little better at night. Or maybe it’s I who can sleep better, knowing that the oven is wrapped in a snug blanket, aka its insulation layer.
The theory behind this layer of sawdust (or other insulating material) mixed with just enough mud to hold it together is simple: it keeps the heat where you want it (i.e., in the inner, dense thermal layer of the oven, where it can radiate to the baking bread) and away from where you don’t want it (i.e., yourself and other surrounding burn-able objects).
If I’ve been deafeningly silent about my earth oven lately, it’s because there has been literally nothing cooking with it. Six weeks after I finished building the thermal mud layer, it is still not completely dry. I attribute this to 1) a coastal climate that sees thick damp fog roll in almost every evening and hang around until, often, midmorning or later, and 2) the fact that my oven does not live with me (or more accurately, I do not live with it) full time, and I keep it covered when I am away to protect it from rain (rare this time of year, but potentially disastrous to an uncured oven if it were to strike).
My impatience aside, this slow drying has not been a terrible thing. My mason friend assures me this is the best way to minimize the cracks that Kiko Denzer says are virtually inevitable (but usually cosmetic), and it’s true that cracks haven’t been an issue. But good grief, I can’t hold my impatience at bay forever! And if I don’t get the second (insulating) layer on soon, before the rains get down to serious business in another month or two, I may really be sorry.
I’m taking a little vacation this week, where the seafood is good, the family is better, the oven is questionable, and the internet access is bad. See you Friday with YeastSpotting.
Have you ever watched mud dry? I can tell you it happens excruciatingly slowly. I know this because for ten days I have been monitoring the progress of a four-inch-thick, three-foot-diameter beehive-shaped shell as it transforms from a mixture of soil, sand, and water into a solid, heat-retaining, bread-baking wonder (I hope).
At last report, I had a hearth and a doorway arch. From there, progress was apace for a while. First I packed the spaces between the arch bricks with mud. The following morning, my sister and my niece helped me create the dome-shaped sand form.
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