Setting Down the Trowel for the Flour

Now I know what you're all thinking: "Rubik, we can tell that you've turned into quite the master craftsmen/builder, but can you even cook pizza??"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? I'VE GOT PIZZA SAUCE RUNNING THROUGH MY VEINS!!!

Step 1: Preparing the Dough


Alright so first I need to make sure the concrete mixer is super-clean, then toss in the flou...actually, I only made a couple pizzas so no need to use the heavy-duty concrete mixer. Instead, I finally got to bring my bread machine out of retirement, and I only use the finest bread flour (ok ok, so I can't really tell the difference...but if it costs more then it MUST be better, right???)

After the dough gets mixed and kneaded in the bread machine, I give it a light coat of flour and stick it in a bowl (I add the flour so it doesn't stick to the bowl). Then I cover the bowl with a towel and stick it in the oven until I'm ready to use it.



Step 2: Preparing the toppings

I decided to make a pretty simple pizza - chicken, sauce, cheese, and basil - and added some basic ingredients to spice it up. I figure I can start off fairly basic then change up the ingredients as I gain more pizza-making experience to tweak the taste. Two must-have flavors are garlic and onions (NOTE: RUBIK'S PIZZA IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR DATES, VAMPIRES, OR DATES WITH VAMPIRES)



I sauteed the garlic and onions, then threw the chicken in with it and seared it for a little on each side, then covered it up on a low heat to soak in all the garlicky goodness



Next, I chopped up some more onions and garlic as well as some fresh basil and oregano for the sauce. I learned quickly that even at a low heat, the sauce needs to be stirred constantly or else it starts bubbling and popping.



Step 3: Preparing the Pizza

Once the sauce was done, I rolled out my dough into the size of my pizza peel (you know, that wooden thing that the pizza goes on before it goes in the oven). One day I'll learn how to toss pizza dough, but for now I have to rely on my rolling pin. I think I need to look into different dough recipes (the one I used is the one that came with the bread machine), I gotta do something different for the dough to be easier to roll out.

Once the dough was ready, I put on a layer of sauce (not too much so it doesn't get all soggy), added the fresh mozzarella (rather than grate the cheese, I sliced the mozzarella and dropped pieces all around the pizza. That's how they did it at Grimaldi's in Brooklyn, so that's how I'm gonna do it dammit!), then added my chicken and basil. I added a light brush of olive oil around the edge of the crust then VOILA!



Step 4: Baking the pizza

Now when my brick oven is complete, this process should only take 1.5 to 2 minutes to cook the pizza. However, it'll take a solid 45 minutes to get the oven up to 800 degrees. Since my brick oven is still under construction I had to resort to a conventional oven. I do, however, have a baking stone, except I probably should've preheated it a lot longer so the dough would be crispier



Step 5: EAT!

Ever since childhood, this has been by far my favorite step. I liked the sauce and toppings, but I think I really need to work on the crust. It wasn't quite the consistency I want, and I definitely want it to be crispier on the bottom.

Regardless, this was a nice break from construction, although now I can no longer avoid the much-dreaded and intimidating Step 6: Ordering Bricks

You Gotta Have Hearth

A couple months ago, all I had was a concrete slab with a buncha concrete blocks on top filled with concrete...but NOW I have a concrete slab with a buncha concrete blocks on top filled with concrete AND a concrete hearth stone on top of all of that! Sounds pretty simple, right? Just throw a big stone on top of all the pre-existing stones and VOILA! If only it were that easy...

I started building the frame for the hearth stone a few weeks ago. So like most of my oven-building endeavors, it started off with a trip to Home Depot. Check out the new armrest I installed in my car!



Unfortunately, as soon as I got home I had to disassemble the armrest so I could build these supports for the hearth stone. Apparently it's good to have additional support when you're setting 840 pounds of concrete on top of something:



Now that these supports are in, I stick a massive piece of plywood on top of it, build the frame around the edge, and now VOILA!



At this point I thought "ok I just need to buy some rebar and concrete and I'll be ready for the next step! However, my "VOILA" was spoiled yet again when I realized my frame needed to be 3 inches higher. So I dilly-dallied for a few weeks then finally got back on it this weekend and ACTUALLY finished the frame:



Much better...now that that's finally done, I just need to buy 10 more bags of concrete mix (I only had 4 bags leftover from my original purchase of 80 60lb bags) and 2 cubic feet of something called "Vermiculite". Apparently this is supposed to add a layer of insulation so the heat from the oven doesn't make the area below the oven too hot (down there where the supports are. Eventually the wood for the oven is gonna get stored there). No one at Home Depot had ever heard of vermiculite, and the first employee at Lowes hadn't heard of it either, so for a minute I thought I was going to have to delay this next step until I could find some vermiculite somewhere. The real fun part was trying to explain what I thought it was to the Home Depot and Lowes employees. Fortunately, I ended up finding someone at Lowes who could help me out, so I lost my excuse to procrastinate!



Now that I had my vermiculite set and had my concrete ready, all I needed to do was start mixing and pouring then VOILA!



...Ok ok so I'm a bag or two short, BUT I'm not taking away the "VOILA!" this time. Once this frame is done setting, the next step is to level out the surface with sand then start covering the surface with refractory bricks. So it's okay that I'm a wee-bit short (and unable to completely level the concrete) because i'm going to level it with sand anyways! Uh oh, I'm starting to sound confident in calling audibles to the instructions...this could be dangerous! There was one step that I wasn't quite able to figure out but didn't audible:



The pictures said to add a gap in the frame for this little area, except no where did it explain the purpose this thing will serve. Hopefully I find out by the end of my construction. For all I know, this could be the single most important step in the construction that's holding everything together.

I'm sure a lot of you are wondering when the "brick" aspect of the "wood-burning brick oven" is going to make an appearance. Soon. Very soon. First I need to let the slab finish setting for the rest of the week, then I can take the frame off and remove the supports from down below. After that, I am forced to buy some bricks! I guess I should start Googling "how to lay bricks"