Sprache wechseln
So, there I was, sitting next to the tent in the middle of the Pyrenees savouring the most amazing Catalan cheesecake baked on a gas stove in precise accordance to a family recipe handed down across generations. A rich, sweet aroma filled the air and the flavours exploded on my palate. A perfect dessert… if it weren’t for the hole in the middle.
Aside from baking bread in a Dutch oven over an open fire with coals on the lid, conjuring up a lasagne, pizza, quiche, muffins, or pain au chocolat while camping has mostly been left exclusively to the style of oven with the hole in the middle. For more than five decades, this breed of oven has been accepted as the go-to solution, even if it did gnaw at the authentic shape of a cake or pizza.
Dear reader, the days of the cake with the hole are numbered! After three years of development and no less than two hundred cakes and pizzas baked on a gas stove, Eric Tornblad has emerged from his man cave with what seems to be the perfect outdoor baking solution. Perfect, because the brand new HAJKA Oven remains as easy to use as the fifty-something-year-old product which many have grown accustomed to, but with 21st century know-how that respects the authentic shape of the food we love: pizzas are circular, and so are many cakes.
All the space agencies around the world have been shooting what are essentially one-way rockets into space at great expense for decades. They thought they knew it all and nobody deemed it necessary to change what apparently worked… until one day, someone else shot a rocket into space and brought it back again to land on its pad to be used again another day. That’s rocket science. Should we be talking about baking science here?
Who is Eric Tornblad? What does he know about outdoor cooking?
Eric Tornblad is Swedish by birth and an outdoor chef by design. “During my fifteen years as a recipe creator and cookbook author, I have longed for a compact and smart oven that works with my gas stove. Finally, I realised I had to create it myself!”
Let me roll back a little bit. I was first introduced to the HAJKA Oven when Gijs Loning, aka outdoor.guru, sent me his latest video. A few minutes after watching, I reached out to Eric and set up a call.
Eric is one of those people who you interview and suddenly realise it’s going to be difficult to get a question in edgeways—so it’s better to sit back and enjoy the story. His enthusiasm and fact-filled account of research, baking, lab testing, baking, and even more baking, on his journey from an idea to a pretty much finished product, was eye-opening. Who would have known just how scientific this can be? One oven, three heating techniques, and the most advanced materials and coatings. Three heating techniques? I hear you asking. Radiation, convection, and conduction. The combination of all three is what guarantees the perfect sponge cake, baked right next to your tent. Every time.
You know the old adage: A picture says more than a thousand words. So feast your eyes on these “proof of concept” images before I continue…
Hungry? A pizza with an irresistible crispy crust can be ready in five minutes. Lasagne, baked vegetables, bread, fish… ah, the list goes on. And there’s a recipe book to make sure your results are as good as the pictures.
Dear reader, I’m pretty sure you have a smartphone. And I’m also pretty sure it does what all those YouTube videos and reviews say it does, without you knowing exactly how it does what it does. We like results, and if that means our phones can take videos and photos, read and write emails, navigate to lost places, chat with friends, or even record and broadcast a podcast, then we’re happy. We don’t need the intricacies of the magic inside. We just need to know which buttons to press and in which order.
With that in mind, here is a cross-section drawing of how the HAJKA Oven does its magic:
Whilst remaining simple to use, the HAJKA Oven is only as good as it is, because Eric has injected his understanding of how culinary delights are best cooked into your new problem solver. For example, a pizza needs a hot surface and a flow of hot air. That’s why there is a special pizza plate, made in a particular way, from a particular material, so that the crust comes out with the crunch you expect and the cheese is browned just like from your favourite Italian restaurant.
KICKSTARTER
This could very well be the next Zero-to-Hero success story, and you and I, as potential customers, can give this exciting project a leg-up. Eric Tornblad has launched a Kickstarter campaign. Have a look and see what perks he has in store for early birds.
I certainly can’t wait to lay my hands on my own HAJKA Oven and try out some of my favourite recipes… and those in Eric’s books.
