Pumpkin Spice Muffins

There are countless recipes you can make in a brick oven. This holiday season try baking your favorite dessert in your wood fired oven. The added flavor from this method of cooking will suprise you.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins (With Cream Cheese Frosting)

Ingredients
 Muffin Ingredients:
1 cup All-purpose Flour
1/2 cup Sugar
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1-1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger
1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon Salt
4 Tablespoons Butter, cut into pieces
1 cup (heaping) Pumpkin Puree
1/2 cup Evaporated Milk
1 whole Egg
1-1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
1/2 cup Golden Raisins (optional!)


TOPPING:
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg

FOR FROSTING:
1/4 cup Softened Butter
4 ounces, weight Cream Cheese
1/2 pound Powdered Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla

Preparation Instructions
Preheat wood fired oven to 400 degrees. Generously grease 12 muffin tins.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. Cut in butter with two knives or a pastry blender until it is fully incorporated. In a separate bowl, mix together pumpkin, evaporated milk, egg, and vanilla. Pour pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Add raisins. Fold gently until mixture is just combined.

Pour into a greased muffin pan—batter hardly ever fills all twelve unless you keep it down to 1/2 full. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamon-sugar-nutmeg mixture over the top of each unbaked muffin.
Bake for 25 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for 15 minutes, then remove and allow to cool. Ice with cream cheese frosting.

To make the frosting, mix all ingredients on high until soft and whipped. Spread onto completely cooled muffins, or place into a large pastry bag with a large star tip and go crazy! Store in the fridge, as icing will soften at room temperature.

Wood Fired Apple Pie

Baking in a Wood Fired Oven: After pushing the coals to the back of the wood fired oven near the wall, brush the ashes off of the floor.  The chunks of glowing hardwood coals should have little or no flame when the apple pie goes in. Every 15 minutes, turn apple pie so the other end faces the fire.

1 pie = 2 crusts (10 inches)

Ingredients for Crust:
2 2/3 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1 cup shortening
7-8 tablespoons ice water

Mix flour, salt & shortening; cut in with pastry cutter. Add water last. Roll into a ball. You may refrigerate or roll out right away.

Ingredients for Filling:
12-14 apples (Golden Delicious, regular size)
¾ cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg

Peel and slice apples. Mix all ingredients together. Make sure to fill pie all the way before baking.  Brush crust with milk and sprinkle with sugar.  Poke with a fork. Bake 1 hour at 350° F and put cookie sheet under pie.

* Put cut-outs on after milk & sugar. *

Wood-fired Oven Roasted Potatoes

Ingredients:

8 medium Yukon potatoes

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt & pepper

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

Peel and wash the potatoes, and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Place them into a greased casserole. Season the potatoes with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with garlic and rosemary. Bake at 400^oF (200^oC) for approximately 1 hour. These are very easy and delicious. Enjoy!

Serves 4

Prosciutto & Arugula Pizza in a Wood Burning Oven

Use one of our Forno wood burning ovens to create this light summer pizza.

Basic pizza dough (recipe on previous blog)
Flour, for rolling out dough
Extra virgin olive oil
Thinly sliced prosciutto Fresh arugula, washed
Parmigiano Reggiano shavings

Roll out pizza dough, adding flour as needed to prevent sticking. Drizzle with olive oil and bake directly on stone in wood-burning oven at about 600-700F (300-350C) until crisp and golden-brown on the edges. Remove from oven and top with prosciutto, arugula, and parmigiano. Serve right away.

Cooking Techniques with Wood Fired Ovens

Wood fired ovens are capable of huge variety of cooking styles. With most types of cooking, the oven should be fully brought up to heat, and then prepared for differing temperatures by moving the fire and coals until the desired level of heat is reached. The amount of wood you need will depend upon how long you will be cooking, so make sure to plan ahead and know what you will be using the oven for before starting it up. The following are three different techniques for cooking with your wood fired oven.

Fire in the Oven Cooking - This type of cooking is done at temperatures about 650 degrees and is used for baking pizza, pizza like flat-breads and some appetizers, all of which only take a few minutes at most to cook. This type of cooking requires a larger fire and should be maintained with more wood as long as you need those temperatures for cooking.

Roasting - cooking at 450 to 600 degree is considered roasting. This technique is best for searing meats, browning vegetables and placing the finishing sear on casseroles and other dishes. Roasted can be using in conjunction with baking to create a sear on your dish that helps seal in lots of flavor.

Baking - baking is done at temperatures lower than 500 degrees. Baking is great for bread, desserts, smaller roast meats, beans and legumes and a wide variety of pasta dishes. Baking is what we usually think about when talking about traditional ovens. Wood burning ovens can do this and so much more.

Grilling - a wood fired oven can make a great grill. By raking a layer of hot coals across the cooking floor at the front of your oven, and sliding a free standing cast iron grill into the oven, you can enjoy grilling that sets seared grill marks, and seals in moisture for food that is crisp and not dried out.

Pizza Margherita for Your Wood Fired Oven

Pizza Margherita is a classic Italian style pizza that focuses on high quality ingredients and traditional Italian flavors. If you are looking for a heavy or complicated pizza with lots of toppings, look elsewhere. This simple yet delicious style of pizza is great for people who want the fundamental flavors of Italian cooking without a bunch of extraneous items blocking the flavors.  Pizza Margherita is a very adaptable recipe. The following is just a guideline, so feel free to make changes in order to make it perfect for you.

What you will need:

• Pizza Dough – you can use store bought, but you will get better results with our pizza dough recipe.

•  Extra Virgin Olive Oil

• Garlic

• Fresh Basil

• Fresh Roma Tomatoes

• Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

Preheat your wood fired oven to 450 degrees or higher. The higher the temperature the less time it will take to cook. Mix in garlic, salt, olive oil, and sliced tomatoes in a bowl. Use this mixture to lightly brush the pizza dough. Then layer thin sliced fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and rough chopped basil over the pizza. Place in heated oven until the crust and cheese is a golden brown.

Great Deals on Forno Wood Fired Ovens

Now is a great time to get a high quality wood fired oven made in Italy that can be used for authentic Italian cooking. Dolce Vita Specialty Imports has three lines of high quality wood fired ovens that will have your food tasting better than ever.

The Forno Classico series is a wonderful addition to any kitchen, patio or backyard. Its professionally made steel and cast iron construction makes it durable yet elegant appliance for authentic Italian cooking. The Classico oven can also stand free in your backyard and features wheels for easy moving. It can also be built into your indoor or outdoor kitchen. Check out our specials now. You can get a Forno Classico wood fired oven for as little as $2750.

The Forno Premium is a higher quality wood burning oven with tons of useful features for cooks looking to go the extra mile in flavor and presentation. Forno Premium ovens feature things like heat and corrosion resistant paint, removable interior for easy cleaning, stone bottom for pizza or bread, steam valve for greater humidity control and three cooking surfaces for multitasking. Check out our current specials on these amazing Forno Premiums. You can get one for as low as $2950.

The Forno Rustico line of ovens are created with modern technology but use traditional and proven cooking methods to allow for authentic Italian cuisine. The Rustico wood fired ovens are designed to combine traditional cooking methods with highly technical design and construction. These ovens not only cook well, but they look fantastic in or outdoors. We’re now having a sale on these Forno Rustico ovens and you can get one for as lowas $950.

Informative Videos about Wood Fired Ovens

If you are looking for more information on high quality Forno wood burning ovens, or for recipes and ideas for use of the ovens, then take a look at the links to videos below for a wealth of information regarding these top of the line wood fired ovens. You can find all of the wood fired oven videos here, or click on the links to some of the individual ones. 

Cooking in the Forno Classico

This video shows how to load wood into the wood fired oven and then goes on to show the delicious results that come from cooking pizza and bread in the Forno Classico. You can see how the authentic Italian pizza cooks to a beautiful finish while the bread develops a wonderful charred crust.

Porchetta Preparation and Cooking

Porchetta is a savory, fatty, and moist boneless pork roast of Italian culinary tradition. The body of the pig is gutted, deboned, arranged carefully with layers of stuffing, meat, fat, and skin, then rolled, spitted, and roasted, traditionally over wood. Porchetta is usually heavily salted in addition to being stuffed with garlic, rosemary, fennel, or other herbs, often wild. This video shows the preparation and cooking of this delicious and traditional Italian dish.

Summer Fruit Pies

This video features the preparation of several summer fruit pies including peach and blueberry. The pies are then placed in a Forno Classico and bake into a golden brown flaky crust. The pies look so delicious you will barely be able to watch without getting hungry.

For a demonstration on the Forno Premium wood fired oven, watch this video.