HA!

Success! A bread oven has been made from rocks, and bread has been baked in said oven! 

Saturday, the K's went and built our oven. It took 12 hours, from start to finish. It was hot. It was dirty. Funniest part? We totally failed the first attempt. No, really. The first incarnation of our rock oven was simply that, rocks. We filled up the gaps in the rocks as best we could, and left a few holes for ventilation purposes. We had limited space, and a potential fire ban to contend with, so our oven got constructed in a pit at a campground. 

We built the oven, we fired the oven, we baked the bread (barm included for your tasting pleasure), and we timed the bread with a very anachronistic blackberry. We kept children from touching the hot rocks, and we waited. We removed the loaf of bread a little less than an hour after insertion, and found that the very outer layer skin was slightly cooked, and the innards were all gooey still. This was the third time we had checked the bread, and we knew that something was wrong. Our oven wasn't holding the heat like it should have been. Which totally sucked. 

So, Karen went to dig in the forest for dirt so we could make some mud (Yes, I am serious, we did in fact do all of these ridiculous things) and I sat and watched the rocks some more. She came back, we made the mud, and with the mud we patched all the cracks and holes in our oven. Also, I realize I failed to mention we did all of this in dresses. Medieval dresses. With long trailing bits of cloth to drag in the soot and dangle in the fire. Anyway, we were in garb and covered in mud, our oven was covered in mud, and just before firing it again, along came a simply wonderful gentleman whom we shall call M. For all intents and purposes, M was our James Bond Q equivalent.

M took a can and brilliantly covered our muddy oven with leftover ash from previous fires, for even better insulation. He then told us we should go pick a bunch of grass to cover the ash for another layer of insulation. Which we immediately went and did. Likely taking pity on us, he even built our second fire. M is the ultimate good Samaritan. His parting words of wisdom were about fire. If you burn something in say, a rock oven for an hour, the rocks, properly insulated, should then retain heat for about an hour. 

This advice was taken as well. We fired the oven for about an hour, hour and a half, and then put in our second batch of bread. And hour later, we pulled out edible and rather delicious bread. (bread with barm, not as tasty. The bread with the raisins was quite popular though) Having more wood, dough, and frankly, time, we fired the oven a third time, and baked another two loaves with the remaining dough. It was very yummy.

So. What did we learn from this? It's hard to carry rocks while wearing a bodice. Barm is bitter, as is failure. Our oven got hot. It set an oven mitt on fire. Shade is much prized at an outdoor event when you toil over a fire for long hours. Everyone at the SCA is extremely friendly and helpful. Even if I can't bow properly to save my life. And, it is much, much easier to just go buy bread from the store. But it probably doesn't taste as good as ours.

--K1

Pictures to arrive later!