Backyard Brick Oven Pizza

So several weeks ago I went to a Tie-Dyed Festival at the local Community Arts Center.  We, of course, tie-dyed shirts, were serenaded by local musicians, and enjoyed our favorite foods and spirits.

It was a grand time.

One of the food offerings that day was pizza made in the Center’s incredible new cob oven.  

What’s that I hear, perhaps a question?  A cob oven?  

A cob oven is an outdoor oven made with clay, sand, and straw.  Cob construction is an ancient, natural building method, used since prehistoric times and made popular recently by the sustainability movement.  More commonly referred to as adobe, this environmentally conscience oven can bake pizza and bread, roast vegetables and meats and anything else you can bake in a conventional oven.   The pizza you see right up there was baked in that cob oven.  

The construction is basic starting with a stone, concrete or brick base and then packing several thick layers of clay on top to form a clay dome.  This process can take several weeks because the layers of clay need to dry thoroughly prior to use.

As you have read before, I am half Italian.  My grandmother’s family owed and operated an outdoor oven and they would bake freshly-made bread dough for the other villagers.  Below are photos of Sulmona, Italy, my ancestral home in the Abruzzo region, that my cousin took while visiting recently.  I have looked at these photos a thousand times and imagined my dear grandparents walking through that piazza and shopping in the open-air market. Look at those stunning mountains!  I will visit one day!

But if a homemade cob oven or a trip to Italy to bake in the village oven is not in your future, there is way to bake pizza outside that may be sitting right in your back yard….the barbecue grill!  

It's quite simple really....place a well-seasoned pizza stone on the grate and fire up the grill. Cut a piece of parchment paper a bit smaller than the pizza stone.  Rub a bit of olive oil on the parchment paper, place the dough on top of the paper then build your pizza as usual.  Place a pizza paddle under the parchment paper and slide the parchment-bottomed pizza dough onto the pizza stone.  In  about 5 minutes minutes, you will have a wonderful, brick-ovenesque pizza!  

We have pizza often at C’s house (Architect) and below is her basic pizza dough recipe.

Pizza Dough
Preheat the grill to at least 550 degrees.

1 1/2 cup warm water
1 rounded teaspoon of rapid rise yeast
1 rounded teaspoon of sugar

Mix the water yeast and sugar together and wait for it to bubble, then let is rest for a few minutes.  

1 teaspoon of salt
1 Tablespoon of olive oil
3 cups of all purpose flour

Add the salt and olive oil and slowly add the four until the mixture starts to bind.  Turn the mixture out of the bowl and knead; add more flour until the dough is not sticky and springs back when poked. Cover with a clean towel and let rest for an hour.  

After an hour or so, turn the dough out onto a clean, dry surface using lots of flour sprinkled on it so the dough does not stick.  Cut into snowball-size pieces.  Work and roll the dough into a circle or rectangle.  Brush on some olive oil and other favorite toppings and cook as instructed above, about 3-5 minutes.   My favorite toppings are caramelized onions and sautéed mushrooms.  For a sweet and savory pizza, I top with fig jam, pine nuts, goat cheese and sautéed sage leaves.  This dough recipe should make about three medium pizzas.

And there you have it, delicious brick-ovenesque pizza, right in your own back yard.

Here's the shirt I made at the Festival.  I always wondered how to make tie-dye swirls....now I know!  Love this shirt!!!