Monday, May 17, 2010

My Sun Oven Rocks!

We are getting to that time of year here in Arizona.  HOT is the only way to describe it.  Ugly, nasty, over the top, ridiculously HOT. (Can you tell I'm not a fan of summers in Arizona?  LOL)  Thank goodness for my lovely AC!  However, that blessedly cool air does not come cheap, so heating up the kitchen by baking is not something I like to do. Enter my wonderful Global Sun Oven.  I have had it for a couple of years now and have used it for everything from roast  to rice but have never tried it for bread.  Since it only gets up to 300- 325 degrees I was afraid bread was off the list.  However, I did some online research and talked to a few people who assured me it could be done.  So, yesterday I decided to give it a shot and it worked.. beautifully! I'm so excited.  I used the master recipe from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day which is our assignment this month in our bread group.  One site I found particularly encouraging was Chef Tess Bakeresse- She also lives in Arizona and has the same issues that I do when it comes to turning on the oven during these months.  Anyway, I pretty much followed her advice including doing the final raise in the sun oven as it heats up.

Raising in the sun oven

I'm still in the learning stages- as you can see, I left the bread in the oven a little too long.  I should have pulled it out at 170 degrees.  But, we couldn't tell any adverse effects- the bread was moist and delicious.  It didn't taste dried out or over baked. 

Here is my loaf of bread.. completely cooked by solar power.  Hubby pronounced it the best bread I've made so far using the HBin5 method.  So, it was a success all around.  (Love it when that happens!)

11 comments:

  1. Your bread look like it has a perfect crumb, the rise was lovely! How adventurous of you to make the a solar oven! I think you're amazing!

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  2. Your bread looks wonderful. What a wonderful baking option you have. Thanks for stopping by and for your sweet comment but I think your crumb looks great also.

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  3. Wow Mama Lou! I'm completely impressed. I was pretty skeptical when you said you were going to bake bread in your sun oven. That'll teach me to doubt the mama. Love you!

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  4. Impressive, I have looked into Solar ovens a few years back but never made one yet.I guess El Paso woud be the right climate for it. Thank for posting you bread. It is an encouragement to try different things and to save energy as well.

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  5. Neat oven. And remember, it is a dry heat.

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  6. What a great oven! Your bread looks very good.

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  7. We have solar panels on our van for power I will have to show the MOTH that they can be cooked with - how interesting and it looks good also :)

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  8. Amazing bread. I had no idea you could cook bread in a solar oven. I bake mine to 200 degrees anyway. Yours is perfect. Are you staying in the Phoenix area now that you are finished with your missionary service?

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  9. Bonnie- yes, we actually live here. We had the best of both worlds.. serving a full time mission and getting to go home every night!

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