Homemade oven has made many loaves, smiles

By Bill Vossler

How do you make an oven that weighs 2,000 pounds? Basically, with a village, said Marjorie LaCoursiere of Red Lake Falls.

“Jane Vignes of Climax came up with the idea,” Marjorie said. “She got the plans online, and made one herself. Since she is on the Board of Directors for AFRAN (local American/French Club) she thought it would be a good idea to make one for the Chautauqua Festival we sponsor near Huot every year. We all thought it was a good idea too.”

So at the 2008 festival people started building the oven.

“It was a two-day project, and I coordinated it, getting things together and having people at the festival helping,” she said.

Building the oven began with a tractor tire rim, Marjorie said.

Marjorie pulls out the first batch of baked bread. Photo by Bill Vossler

“It was laid as the base, and covered with firebrick to make the floor of the oven,” she said. “On top of the firebrick we built a mound of wet sand in the middle, which would become the center of the oven. We worked to make this mound a nice round beehive and kept the sand wet so it would keep its shape.”

Next was digging out clay from the Red Lake River at the park, one of Marjorie’s strengths.

“I have worked with clay, and had done pottery, and a group around Red Lake Falls had dug local clay at construction sites and processed that clay. So I knew of clay and how to clean and process it,” she said.

Processing the clay involved first making it messy, she said. 

“Pick out the obvious debris, and then make a clay slurry, wet and messy like heavy pancake dough batter that you strain through mesh sieves. Then you pick out more debris, strain it again and let it dry. In a nutshell that’s how to process clay.”

Next the clay was mixed with sand, and vermiculite.

“We worked pretty hard in getting the sand mound nice and smooth, and then we built four five-inch-thick sidewalls and covered the sand with it, all four sidewalls combining at the top,” she said. “We made sure the sand stayed moist until the outer clay was dried. Once that dried and held shape, the sand inside was removed.” 

After the weekend of work, Marjorie said, “We added a concrete exterior shell on it to preserve the clay, and we built a door out of wood to fit in the opening for baking purposes. So that’s how it was constructed.”

Then they moved it to Marjorie’s farm.

“We got it out of the park by lifting it with a skid-steer, and put it on a trailer,” Marjorie said. “However, we moved it too soon because it did slump some, and we had to remake some of it. In fact, the most difficult part of the oven was to figure out how much time it takes for that clay to completely dry, and then allowing that much time.”

“So it’s kept at our home throughout the year. Each year we trailer it back down to the park.”

Some reactions indicate how much people enjoy the oven.

“People will see me at the park, and say, ‘You weren’t on the billing for the festival saying you were going to be here.’ Or, ‘You’re the reason we come down every year.’ There’s something about fresh bread and in this oven.”

Marjorie said people in general don’t know how baking the bread in this huge oven works.

“Many think the bread is placed in the oven with the fire in there, but it’s not,” she said. “We begin the process of starting the oven a day or two before the festival. I make sure to heat the oven in low fire for three or so hours, to draw the moisture out from the oven because it always stays outside in the elements, though it’s covered with a tarp.”

On the day of the festival the oven is put on a trailer with a skid-steer once more, and taken down to the festival grounds.

“I get down there and start it four hours before the festival begins,” Marjorie said. “I make a small fire, which I keep building up. We use wood, and found that a variety of hard wood works best. Always wood.”

Family is always around to help, and here Marjorie’s son Eli is getting the oven good and hot. Photo by Bill Vossler

That’s similar to how Marjorie and her family live in their house. “We have a wood kitchen range here and fireplace, so we always have wood on hand.”

“The fire is right in the center of the oven where the bread goes, and once we have the temperature up to 500-600 degrees, the coals are removed,” she said. “Then we use a wet rag to quickly mop up the ash inside. Once the oven is mopped out, some pizza is put in, which is finished in five minutes. The wood door, very wet from being submerged in water overnight to keep it from burning, as well as providing the moisture for the baking bread and its crust, is put in. That’s followed with the first batch of loaves of bread, usually six at a time. The first loaves are a lean, no fat, French dough of only flour, water, salt, and yeast. At first you put a few pieces of bread dough in and it’s so hot that they are done in about 15 minutes. They cook very quickly, and sometimes come out a little burnt depending on how hot the oven is. After that first batch the second will take a little longer, perhaps 25 minutes, as there’s no more fire in the oven, and it is cooling down slowly.”

Then as it gets cooler, the oven can handle sweeter dough, Marjorie said.

“The whole-wheat cinnamon raisin bread takes about 40 minutes because we’re cooling down, and another six loaves of bread, the fourth round of loaves takes about 45 minutes to get brown. A few years we’ve even had some brownies made up in a pan, which took an hour and fifteen minutes in the oven at the end of the day, and made some nice, delicious brownies.”

Sometimes a few caramel rolls might happen at the end of the baking cycle for the day, Marjorie said.

What Marjorie enjoys most is seeing people and talking with them, she said.

“There’s also the satisfaction of taking nice crusty loaves out of the oven. It’s a very satisfying product especially thinking of all that went into it. We don’t just throw bread dough in the oven, but we work at it. The smells of the fire and fresh bread is just one big package. In my life I’ve made a lot of bread and this whole project was not something I sought to do, but God set it before me and it’s part of who I am.”

Marjorie said a free-will offering pot is on the table with the bread.

“I sell the loaves and use the proceeds to pay for the supplies for the next year. It’s fun to do,” she said.

Marjorie said it has totally been a family project each year.

“I don’t do it on my own. While I’m there working the loaves, a son or two will be helping with the oven. At different times my husband is there, and usually two or three from our family has helped, driving the skid steer, loading the trailer with the oven, getting it off and in place, tending the fire, putting loaves in, taking loaves out. And sampling the bread,” she laughed.