Solar Cooking!

Recently we decided that on The Trip we would like to be able to bake. That was an interesting dilemma as baking and roadtripping doesn't really go together (or so we thought). After doing some research online about solar ovens we decided to go ahead and purchase one. It cost about $250 (with shipping) We bought the most widely used oven available and one that had the most positive reviews. Supposedly this oven could get over 350+ degrees and would cook without burning. We figured it was worth a try. This week the oven arrived completely assembled, and all we had to do to use it the first time was to remove the protective film from the reflectors.

How does it work? It works GREAT! Our burnoff test revealed that the oven could get to boiling in under 10 minutes, over 300 in 20 minutes, and over 365 degrees in 40 minutes! That's definitely hot enough to bake. So, today we threw together a simple no-yeast maple-oatmeal whole wheat bread. After preheating the sun oven we threw the bread mix in and sat back and watched. It cooked in almost the same time the recipe said it would because the recipe called for 350 degrees and that's almost exactly what the oven got to. Homemade bread baked by the sun in about an hour? Yeah!

One of the best benefits of solar ovens is that they can be used in cold weather. A clear cold day is better than a humid hot day because of the light intensity which is the most important part. That means you can cook even below freezing in the winter! Your cooking window is much shorter because of the shorter days, so that just means you need to use your sun time better.

Our hope is that on the trip we will be able to cook our own granola, cookies, bread, and snack bars. We figure not only will it taste better and be better for us than store bought items, but will give us a much different perspective on cooking and eating our own food. In addition to baking the oven can also cook anything else you want. We're going to try slow roasting pork, making rice, and boiling water for coffee. It'll be a cool experience.

http://www.sunoven.com/

Here are some pictures from our first baking.

The recipe.

The oven with reflectors folded up.

Starting temp

25 minutes into preheat.

around 40 minutes of baking.

Crust starting to get golden brown, and smelling great!

Bread in oven.

Checking the bread. Perfectly cooked and ready to come out.

The final product. Check out that crust!!!

So good.