Testing the ancient bread oven

Now that the bread oven replica at Camp Virtus has dried in the sun, we wanted to go to the next level. The first step was to correct the cracks that had appeared in the body of clay - as the composition was certainly uneven [see the entry on how it was built] and the exposure to the sun one sided. After these have dried as well, the Roman-inspired oven was fired, noting some persistent cracks where smoke escaped.

The final step was to actually try and bake some bread, to see if the heat was indeed enough for the process. Due to bad weather conditions, we used aluminum foil instead of cabbage leafs or anything more antique. We were also short of the appropriate wooden tools, thus the embedded cord that we used to pull the bread out of the oven.

The result was not bad, the bread loaf a bit undone in the center, but that can be easily fixed with a bit of experience in baking times and procedure. We'll be having practical workshops soon!