diff --git a/tools/oven/src/DomainBaker.cpp b/tools/oven/src/DomainBaker.cpp
index 3444077922..3c06ec1096 100644
--- a/tools/oven/src/DomainBaker.cpp
+++ b/tools/oven/src/DomainBaker.cpp
@@ -752,10 +752,11 @@ void DomainBaker::writeNewEntitiesFile() {
     // time to write out a main models.json.gz file
 
     // first setup a document with the entities array below the entities key
-    _json.object()[ENTITIES_OBJECT_KEY] = _entities;
+    QJsonObject json = _json.object();
+    json[ENTITIES_OBJECT_KEY] = _entities;
 
     // turn that QJsonDocument into a byte array ready for compression
-    QByteArray jsonByteArray = _json.toJson();
+    QByteArray jsonByteArray = QJsonDocument(json).toJson();
 
     // compress the json byte array using gzip
     QByteArray compressedJson;