Take a look at these amazing pictures to see how the tiny brick oven was made to scale.
Japan is known for its vast array of miniature toy collections, with individually sold boxes containing tiny tools and utensils which let you make anything from ramen to boiled tofu and even tiny rolls of sushi so small an ant could eat them. One clever Japanese hobbyist decided to branch out and find his own miniature products to complete a pet project and the end result was a gorgeous, fully working pizza oven built perfectly to one twelfth scale. Let’s take a look at how he put it together below.
The base material used was a set of miniature bricks purchased from Seria, one of Japan’s cheap 100 yen (US$0.98) stores.
At the start of the build, he put the bricks together with heat-resistant mortar, pre-soaking the bricks first to prevent the mortar from drying out.
Halfway through, he put in a heat-resistant slate for cooking the pizzas.
One of the trickiest parts of the build was constructing the domed roof of the oven, which began with the curved entry arch.
Once that was complete, the builder let his toy figurines express his feelings of sheer relief and joy!
▼ Next came the iron chimney, vital for releasing smoke from the structure.
Then it was time to attach a handmade iron door to seal the heat inside the combustion area underneath the slate.
▼ The door to the oven was cleverly made from the lid of a cat food tin.
One of the last items to be crafted was the long-handled shovel-like pizza peel, a traditional Italian tool for sliding pizzas on and off the baking stone. This tiny one was hand-crafted from wood pieces.
And of course, no miniature pizza oven would be complete without a stack of chopped firewood for cooking.
Finally, the pizza oven was complete and all that was left to do was start baking! With a fire extinguisher close by in case of problems, the firewood was set alight, ready for the first batch of pizzas.
▼ The pizza ingredients included tiny pieces of chopped ham, capsicum, and cheese.
The tiny pizza bases, made from circular rounds cut from a sheet of pre-made gyoza pastry from the store, were lightly topped with a pizza sauce…
And then the toppings, with a ruler on hand to show just how tiny these pizzas really were!
▼ Time for the first pizza to go in the oven.
▼ Using the wooden pizza peel, each pizza was gently placed inside.
The miniature oven worked exactly as it should, with the cheese bubbling up beautifully on the surface of the pizza as it was being cooked.
▼ The tiny pizzas looked absolutely delicious and were finally ready to be eaten.
▼ Huzzah! The pizza oven was a success!!
After the test run, the creator of the oven performed some maintenance, clearing away the charred remnants of wood inside…
And taking out the baking stone, which had unfortunately cracked with the heat. This one would have to be replaced with a stronger model, though it might take a while to find one in the appropriate size.
Despite the broken hot plate, the creator was so happy with the success of the pizzas that his next plan is to create a dollhouse-sized pizza store.
To keep up to date with the talented builder’s progress reports, be sure to follow him on Twitter. With so many cute figurines and accessories, we can’t wait to see his next project!
Source: Net Lab
Top Image: Twitter/@38beem