How this baker built his oven from the clay of the local creek

Consul might not be as famous as New York City, but you can still find pizza like you would in the Big Apple within the prairie town.
 
Locals will be familiar with the Manley Bread & Honey, a bakery run by David Manley and his wife. While all of the baked goods are worth a try, nothing compares to the pizza. The pizza consistently draws a crowd, filling up the outdoor patio with hungry patrons eager to satiate their yearning for the cheesy goodness. 
 
The trick to the treat? He bakes it in his wood-fired clay brick pizza oven that he made himself.

The oven in between uses. 

"I learned how to do it on YouTube," said Manley. "You can teach yourself just about anything with a few videos these days."
 
The oven itself is a brick and sand-filled base, with a clay oven structure on top. The clay is from the local creek, making the oven a very local feature.
 
Manley builds heat by firing the oven with wood for three to four minutes before he begins cooking the food.

A pizza waits to head into the oven as it heats up. 

The awesome part is that pizza only takes one to two minutes to cook in the oven once it's complete.
 
"It changes all the time because it depends on how hot I've got it," said Manley. "It's anywhere 700° to 800° and right now I just started firing so it's a little bit hot. I'm getting a little bit of a burn on them so I want to get that off and then it takes about a minute or two minutes to cook it."
 
The pizzas are cooked directly on the interior brick surface, with a dusting of cornmeal powder to protect them from burning or adhering to the oven. Once the dough is cooked, Manley raises them up on his pizza paddle to the surface to broil the cheese and toppings for a perfect finish.

Cooking is quick, and the taste is unlike anything found anywhere else. 

"The cornmeal will burn off and then I'll put it back in and that's where we get that big rush of smoke there," said Manley. "The cornmeal just lets it slide off the paddle easily. The worst thing that can happen is you throw it in and it sticks, crumpled. Then it becomes a calzone."
 
Manley cooks each pizza himself and recommends the pear and blue cheese pizza as his best dish. They are charging less than $20 for a whole pizza, with options for half-sized portions for a lighter appetite.

A finished cheese pizza, simple and unencumbered by nuance. 

While he enjoys the work, he is ready to move on from this venture. The whole Manley Bread & Honey enterprise is something he would be willing to sell to the right buyer, should anyone be interested.
 
"We started this 15 years ago and we are trying to sell it now," said Manley. "It's a brand new building and what better time than the 110th anniversary of Consul to change things up?"