This is so cool. I’m having such fun experimenting with this home-made solar cooker.

Our neighbor, Sharon, is a great bread maker, something that has never been one of my strong points. She brought over a small ball of her bread dough for us to cook in the solar cooker. Will it work? You betcha!

mmmm, If Only You Could Smell This. It’s the bread dough ready to bake.

I assembled the pot and placed it in the oven outside. It took about 15 minutes for the pot to get up to 200F. During that time the dough continued to rise and began to pop the top off. I was concerned it might cause a problem but it did not. Once it was at 200F the rising stopped and all was well.

Lid beginning to slide off.

The sun is out, not a cloud in sight, and it’s 78F. I had strapped an oven thermometer to the knob on the lid. Once the 200F was reached I let it cook for about 80 minutes more. Again, I had no idea how long this would take. The temp kept rising slowly until it reached almost 250F. Between Sharon and I we took a somewhat educated guess. We were so amazed and excited when I took the pot out of the cooking bag and removed the lid. OMG…it browned! What a beauty 🙂

It Browned!!

I flipped it out on the cooling rack and we all ooo’d and ahhhh’d in admiration.

Golden Treasure

Sharon and her husband joined us for a little bread party! It was perfectly cooked. The texture is only slightly more moist than usual but it was not soggy or gooey at all. And the taste was wonderful 🙂 . We ate the whole thing.

Delicious! Almost gone!

But I’m not done yet! I’m on a roll. Sharon and John went back to their RV and I went to the refrigerator to see what I could cook next. I know… eggs! ok, well ONE egg. This is an experiment and I didn’t want to spoil more than I needed to if it didn’t turn out.

1 Egg Ready to be Solarized!

I took a cold egg straight from the refrigerator (no cracks) and placed it dry on two folded paper towels to keep it off the floor of the pot and keep it stable. No water. But when I took it outside to place it in the solar cooker I heard the egg roll off the paper towels and roll around inside. Oh well, live and learn. I left it. I started counting the time from the moment I placed it into the cooker. 45 minutes later I brought it in and cracked it open. Look at this!! :

A Solar Cooked Egg

Almost perfect. I prefer my egg yolks runnier than this, but this is good. It would probably take a whole hour to get it to the hard-cooked stage. It was not cooked evenly, a small part of the white was a bit undercooked, but not seriously.

Woo Hoo!

• Gasoline Expense: none
• Camping Expense: none