Saturday, July 25, 2009

Solar Oven Bread

I've always been a little suspicious of the measuring spoons I got at the dollar store. I don't do much baking, where a little too much of something can make a big difference, so I haven't had any problems with them until today. The recipe I used called for 1 1/2 tsp. yeast. The yeast packet said it contained 2 tsp. but when I measured it with my dollar store spoons it came out to less than 1 1/2 tsp. I was so concerned that the incorrect amount of yeast might cause a disaster that it did not even occur to me to worry about any of the other ingredients. This time I used a recipe that called for a mixture of white and whole grain flour. I prepared the dough in the bread machine on the dough setting and let it rise a second time in the bread pan. I put it in the sun oven around noon and when I got home in the late afternoon it looked and smelled perfect. As always with freshly baked bread it was hard to wait for it to cool down to taste it. When I did taste it, I knew the spoons have got to go. It's edible, it's already half gone, but it's a little on the salty side. Despite the fact that my first two loaves of solar baked bread have been less than perfect, it is in no way the fault of the cooking method; In fact I am willing to say that in addition to beans and braised meats, solar cooking is the best way to make bread at home.

2 comments:

  1. This solar oven baked bread looks like it turned out great. Just an FYI, we made a mention of the Solar Oven Chef blog on our Preparedness Pro blog last week and it looks like lots of folks have been heading over to check out your blog. Here's the link: http://bit.ly/1aBHKs

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the mention. I'm getting lots of people from Twitter too. I get new followers every day.

    ReplyDelete