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. 

Wednesday night I made some dough, left it to prove and chucked some logs in the oven. 

It takes about two and a bit hours to get to the right temperature, and when it does it has some serious heat. Somehow the base is always a bit too hot, I need to get a mop or something I can cool it down with. 

I then set the dough on four peels I made a while back (there are two still for sale if anyone wants them - made with local chestnut and the word PIZZA is hand carved on them). 

All this while the kids chop toppings and prepare for the cooking of them. 

It never takes very long to cook them and this time I managed to only burn the corner of one. Key is turning them in the oven and making sure it had a long firing to get the heat up in the dome part of the oven. 

A perfect summers evening and a perfect tea to enjoy it. Hopefully many more like this in the next few months. The other huge advantage is it saves having the oven on in hot weather, keeping the house cooler. 

Anyone else love their outdoor way of cooking? Or would like one?