Most baking books focus simply on how to bake bread or pizza in a wood-fired oven, but From the Wood-Fired Oven is unlike other baking books. From recipes on how to get maximum use out of a single oven firing to the first live-fire roasting or drying wood for the next fire, this book encompasses a wide range of useful topics for home and artisan bakers.

In From the Wood-Fired Oven, leading baker and instructor Richard Miscovich offers a new take on traditional techniques for professional bakers, but presents his ideas simply enough to inspire nonprofessional baking enthusiasts as well.

Written by Richard Miscovich with a foreword by Dan Wing, the publication date is October 15, 2013.

Most people know that some items can be baked in a masonry oven with the wood fire burning. But many may not know that other foods can be baked after the ashes of that fire have been brushed out, using the immense store of heat that remains in the masonry mass of the oven dome and the oven floor. This book explains how you can easily and naturally use all the conditions of temperature, humidity, and radiant heat that the oven produces as it gradually cools.

What comes first—pizza or pastry? Roasted vegetables or a braised pork loin? Clarified butter or beef jerky? Readers will find methods and techniques for cooking and baking in a wood-fired oven in the order of the appropriate oven temperature.

In addition to an extensive section of delicious formulas for many types of bread, readers will find chapters on:

• Making pizza and other live-fire flatbreads;
• Roasting fish and meats;
• Grilling, steaming, braising, and frying;
• Baking pastry and other recipes beyond breads;
• Rendering animal fats and clarifying butter; and,
• Food dehydration and infusing oils.

Appendices include oven-design recommendations, a sample oven temperature log, Miscovich’s baker’s percentages, proper care of a sourdough starter, and more.

From the Wood Fired Oven is more than a cookbook. It reminds the reader how a wood-fired oven (and fire, by extension) can draw people together and bestow upon them a sense of comfort and fellowship. Cooking and baking from a wood-fired oven is a basic part of a resilient lifestyle and a perfect example of valuable traditional skills being used in modern times.

To learn more, visit http://media.chelseagreen.com/from-the-wood-fired-oven/

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