There is an old saying that goes ” If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck” and as a rule I can go with that. However I have just spent four days building myself an outdoor bread oven, not a Pizza Oven, that fact that you could cook pizza in it hasn’t escaped me, but I have built a bread oven.

There are subtle but important differences, for example the fire goes in the bottom right hand compartment, not in the oven, the heat is then ducted through a hole in the wall to heat the oven. There is a flue with a chimney with a recycled chimney pot on the left hand side, unlike any pizza oven.  Above the fire box is another compartment, which will be the proving oven, definitely a bread thing that not pizza.

However everyone who has seen it says “oh your building a pizza oven”, and when I explain its a bread oven, they only really want to know if I can cook pizza in it.

Having now reached the half way point. The brick work is done and now its the fitting out, making doors, fire grates, door catches, all the fun stuff, so the end is in sight, and I can look forward in a few weeks time having a test firing, and I have been discussing with my family the inaugural menu. They have been present during the gestation period, they have seen me agonising over the design, debating the merits of the proving oven, and the need for the heat regulator flap. They understand my strong desire for a bread oven.

So what do they want to cook, you guessed it PIZZA

QUACK QUACK.