When a Wood-fired Oven Shares Traits with Artisan Bread
When a Wood-fired Oven Shares Traits with Artisan Bread
What do our Valoriani wood-fired ovens have in common with artisan bread – something that has become über-popular? We know our ovens are often deemed perfect by artisan bread makers and bakers, but what characteristics do an artisan loaf and a Valoriani oven share?
1. Hand-crafted with love
Both artisan bread and baked products and our artisan Valoriani ovens are hand-crafted with love, using skills passed down through the generations. In Valoriani’s case, the artisan credentials come from being a ceramics specialist, founded in 1890. Even though we are now in 2024, the 4th generation of the family is still using some of the same techniques used by its founder, because they cannot be beaten. Clay is still worked and shaped with exquisite attention to detail; pieces are fitted by craftsmen taking ownership of their product. Mosaic tiles are hand-applied and features are hand-painted by artists. It’s a perfect recipe.
2. Quality ingredients
Artisan bread is full of high-quality ingredients, unlike mass-produced bread, made to a Chorleywood process, relying on chemical and high-energy mixers to speed up fermentation.
In the case of Valoriani’s artisan wood-fired ovens, high quality ‘ingredients’ are also used. This is ‘cotto’ clay – high-quality refractory clay just perfect for firing–up brick. This is the clay that goes into our oven builds. It is absolutely brilliant at retaining heat within the oven shell, especially when combined with Valoriani’s first-class insulation materials.
The ‘nouveau’ wood-fired ovens – and even ones manufactured in much lower volumes – lack this quality of material and struggle to fire up their domes. To ‘speed up’ they use their equivalent of the chemical and mixers of mass-produced bread, building micro-mesh metal into their dome construction, or other gimmicks, intended to assist firing up. But metal contracts and expands during the heating process, putting strains on the materials around it. Quick disintegration of the oven shell tends to be the result.
3. Long production life
The longer the production process for artisan bread, the longer the shelf-life. This is also true of Valoriani’s artisan domestic and commercial ovens. By taking time and care over their construction, the Valoriani family and their team of artisans in Reggello, Italy, create ovens that last 15 or 20 years, or longer. This is not fantasy, but a common lifespan for a Valoriani oven, even when used day in, day out in commercial environments. And, of course, if you are a really keen home cook, there’s nothing to stop you having a commercial-grade oven at home. It can help you put on an artisan masterclass every time!
On the flip side, some domestic ovens find a great home in restaurants, where they are sufficient for the eatery’s demand, or where a particular need is fulfilled e.g creating a gluten-free cooking zone.
4. Superior flavour and texture
Artisan bread is renowned for its superior, robust flavour and texture and so is food cooked within a Valoriani oven. The superior materials used in the construction, the unique shape of the dome and its air-flow and the market-leading levels of insulation used, all create the perfect culinary environment, enabling a proficient chef to create amazingly cooked, flavoursome dishes.
Valoriani wood-fired ovens can cook everything from crisp pizza, to succulent pulled pork or gooey dessert. They are not just one-trick ponies for pizza. Because their heat is so controllable, they can tackle a wide repertoire of recipe book delights.
5. Wooing through aroma
The smell of baking bread is the top scent to incorporate into your property viewings, if you wish to sell a house, according to feedback from 35% of Brits. Having a wood-fired pizza oven installed inside or outside, can also help you sell your property faster. A woodfired oven is a property-value-enhancing feature at a domestic level. It can also add value to a restaurant, creating the food theatre that customers find irresistible.
6. Happiness
Artisan bread makes people happy. 89% put that down to the aroma and 69% say it evokes joyous memories. These memories relate to mothers, in around a third of cases, childhood in 20% of cases, and home-life in 16%.
Our wood-fired ovens also bring happiness to homes, becoming the centre of family occasions. They bring families together for meals and gatherings, for parties and socials, for evening chats on the patio whilst a dish cooks in the oven, and for Sunday roasts with a unique twist. Everyone gets involved, whether that’s adding toppings to pizza or turning dishes in the oven. They are truly ‘happiness-bringers’ for UK families, in just the same way as artisan bread.
Cooking artisan bread in an artisan oven
As we’ve seen, there are clearly a number of shared facets to both artisan breads and our artisan-built, handcrafted Valoriani ovens. However, it does not need to be an either/or scenario. Valoriani ovens are actually also ideal for cooking artisan breads, whether you wish to do that as a home cook, a restaurant chef, or a full-time artisan baker.
If you do fall into the professional artisan baker category, did you realise that Valoriani have a specific oven floor for people with your skills? That’s the degree of artisanship that goes into a Valoriani oven build.
For anyone who loves cooking, there is nothing more joyous than waking up and using leftover heat from a day’s cooking, for another concoction the following morning. All it requires is for you to pop some dough into the oven, close the oven door and allow your Valoriani ‘gem’ to rustle up fresh, handcrafted bread. Few ovens can do this, as they simply cannot hug heat and retain it even for a few hours, let alone overnight. But that’s the beauty of an artisan product.
If you would like to know more about our artisan ovens, or our specific artisan baking ovens, just call us on 07743 847647.