The Oven

Looking to expand my culinary horizons, and reaching the limitations of a propane fueled stove top, I decided it was time to build an oven.  Working off of the assumption that an oven is essentially just a box that gets hot inside, I started looking around Yefri and Nkoranza for some metal that I could put together into a box shape.  Once constructed, the box would then be placed on top of the burners on my stove.

In the computer lab in my school, a veritable voodoo burial mound for desktop computer from the mid 1990s, I found my metal.  Way back then, computer manufacturers designed their desktops so that the monitor would sit atop the computer case.  Given the considerable heft of computer monitors back then, the cases were constructed out of metal, not plastic like they are now.  Since nearly all of the computers in my school are damaged beyond repair, my headmaster gave me permission to take a few of the metal covers caked in cob webs and strewn along the back wall of the room, on top of an old desk.

My original plan was to get some tools and build my metal box by myself.  However, I learned from a Ghanaian friend that there was a technical school in Nkoranza with a metal workshop, so a few weeks ago I went with my metal computer covers and my Ghanaian colleague to the workshop and approached the teacher running the classes.  I showed him the metal and we talked for a bit about the design of the box.  He explained what resources were available to him, such as carbon fiber insulation, and we agreed on a plan.   My oven would have a door that swings open on hinges, and a latch to keep it in place when closed.  Inside, there would be two brackets on either side to hold baking trays, made from aluminum sheets used for roofing.  Each wall, the door, and the top would be about two centimeters thick and stuffed with insulation in order to keep the heat inside the box.

The teacher worked on the box in between classes and last week he called me to tell me it was completed.  I brought it home and washed it out.  I didn’t get the baking sheets until this week, so it wasn’t until this past Thursday that I actually got around to testing the oven out on a major baking endeavor.  Last week, I did bake a few small peanut butter cookies in a frying pan (I removed the handle) and they turned out well, so I had high hopes.

My recipe of choice was one for oatmeal raisin cookies.  There are several reasons why I went with oatmeal raisin cookies.  First, I’ve never baked before in any kind of oven, so I wanted to cut my teeth on something simple.  Second, this was one of only a handful of recipes for which I had most or all of the ingredients.  Third, I love oatmeal raisin cookies.  I think I can safely skip over the rather mundane details regarding the mixing and measuring of the ingredients, as I am almost assuredly the only American on the face of the planet over the age of six who has never made cookies.  The only ingredient I was actually missing was brown sugar, for which I substituted plain old white sugar.  That may have been a culinary faux pas a more veteran chef than myself never would have committed, but sugar is sugar, right?

I scooped the mixture of ingredients (really a soupy batter more than a dough, which, in retrospect, seems to have been a major warn sign that my cookies were headed for disaster) onto one of my aluminum baking sheets.  I stupidly opted to cram fifteen scoops onto one sheet instead of spacing them out, despite the fact that I had two sheets.  While I was scooping, I had turned on my burners to preheat the oven, which sounded like something the pros would do.  When I was finished I put the sheet with my cookies into the oven and went outside to wash some clothes.

Periodically I would come back in to check on the cookies.  As time passed, five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, the cookies expanded, but the tops still remained gooey.  Apparently this is normal, but for some reason I thought the tops of the cookies would be hard when they had finished baking.  After twenty minutes, I decided to take the baking sheet out because I was tired of waiting.  My cookies, due to their considerable lack of viscosity, had expanded, covering almost the entire surface of the baking sheet.  Essentially, I had made brownies, but with oatmeal instead of chocolate.  And when, after letting the baking sheet cool down a bit, I went to pry my cookie continuum from its shiny aluminum shell, I found that the bottom sides of most of the cookies were completely black.

I’m guessing if I had taken the cookies out earlier, added some more flour to solidify the mixture, and used brown sugar (which I can only get in the big cities) instead of white sugar, the cookies would have turned out much better.  Additionally, in my haste to extract the cookies from the baking sheet, I neglected to take a picture of the baked cookies still on the sheet.  Coupled with some technical issues with the internet, I’m unable to show off the finished product.  In all honestly, I’ll wait until I get better before I upload any more pictures.  Better luck next time I guess.

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