Pizza Party #2 - SUCCESS!

Tuesday, July 17, Scott and I hosted our Second Pizza Party. My knitting friends, The Spiderwomen, who I've been knitting with for ten years now were great guests. They were patient with Scott and I, and gave some great feedback. The party was a total success!

Rachelle, Liz, Angie, Alana and Kristin - Thanks Spiderwomen!

The oven worked so much better this time; Scott was able to keep the heat up and the pizzas cooked at a much higher heat. We are assuming it was due to having the box built over the oven, which helped to retain the heat. We can't wait to see how much more the heat will hold once we get the perlite poured inside the cavity, and the roof built on top. Scott improved upon his fire building skills as well.

This photo looks so professional!

I had made a different dough for this party, and it rocked! A friend of mine had mentioned she was into baking bread recently, and was using the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I know the author, Zoe Francois, whose kids went to school with mine in Minneapolis but had forgotten about the book. So I ordered it from the library and made their pizza dough. It was amazing! It rolled out beautifully. I immediately ordered their new Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day from Amazon. I can't wait for it to arrive.

We had purchased additional tools through www.BrickOvenBaker.com since our last firing, and that helped. The 8" Banjo peel rocked! The only complaint Scott had was the metal handles on some of the tools got too hot; we'll have to get that figured out.

In summary ... We had such a fun night, the oven was hotter and the dough was easier to use. Big improvement. Now I need to work on finding some recipes. I'm learning this is a continual learning process.