Sun's Back. Time for Cake.

You would think with this crazy weather we've been having I would get moving on a sunny morning like today. But no, for some reason I seem to think that I still live in Arizona, where a sunny morning means a sunny afternoon followed by a sunny week. Because of this silly notion I didn't get anything in the Sun Oven until almost noon. Once again I used a mix. I didn't have another chocolate one - sniff, sniff, - so I went with this "healthier" apple cake from Canterbury Natural's The result was better than Friday's (which wound up in the trash can) but it was touch and go towards the end. With about ten minutes to go the cloud cover started to build . The Sun Oven temperature dropped slightly. Luckily today, unlike on Friday, I was home - ready to transfer everything inside if needed. In the end the Sun Oven came through and we were able to enjoy a nice piece of solar baked cake for our afternoon snack.

Solar Cake Disaster

Rummaging around in my cupboards yesterday I found this snowflake cake pan. Like most of my cookware I got it at a thrift store and like most of my bakeware I rarely use it.

The morning skies were clear. I decided to ignore Accuweather.com's forecast of increasing clouds throughout the day. I wanted to bake a chocolate cake. I thought I could accent the snowflakes with powdered sugar to make a very pretty cake. I had a few early morning errands to run so I got a late start.

Luckily I used a mix. Like I've said many times in this blog I'm not much of a baker. I had everything ready for the Sun Oven by 11:30. The sun was still shining in full force. Fifteen minutes later there was a thin layer of clouds. Nothing too drastic. The Sun Oven temperature had dropped a little but I wasn't worried yet. Over the course of the next few hours the cloud cover slowly increased. By two o'clock it was completely overcast. I'm not sure if I could have salvaged it by transferring it to the indoor oven. The thought didn't even cross my mind. I thought it was at worst just a little under cooked. I was wrong.

Maybe I should submit it to cakewrecks.com.

Cake!

Normally I would never have even tried to use my sun oven with so many clouds but I decided to go for it. Here are a few things I learned:

As long as there's enough sun to cast a shadow you can use a solar oven.

It's o.k. if the temperature is lower than the recipe says, it will just take longer to bake.

Silicone cookware is perfect for solar cooking and it's easy to clean.

If the recipe calls for butter at room temperature and you forgot to take it out of the fridge and you live in Arizona, just put it out on the patio for ten minutes. It will soften.

You should calculate the calories per serving before following a recipe from any magazine, or never.

If a recipe in Bon Appétit calls for 'special equipment' you probably don't have it. The one I followed called for a 9 inch cake pan with two inch sides. Turns out my cake pan had 1.5 inch sides. The cake came out with a bit of a muffin top, or bottom since it is an upside down cake.

Solar Cooking with a Plan

I had my day perfectly planned out. It's boy's night out so I'd be dining alone tonight. I have plenty of leftovers so no need to make anything for dinner. That makes it the perfect day for baking a cake. Made a quick trip to the grocery store after dinner yesterday for a few missing ingredients. All night I was excited about baking for so many reasons. It would be not only my first solar baked cake but I it would also be the first time I used silicone cookware. I chose a recipe from the latest issue of Bon Appetit. I was ready. I couldn't wait till morning.

So of course I woke up to an overcast sky. I really thought I wouldn't be able to solar cook anything today. So much for being prepared. Now what was I going to do? I couldn't put off baking the cake until tomorrow because of my plan. I'm making chicken tomorrow.

By the time I'd finished my morning coffee the sun was making a feeble attempt to pierce through the clouds. Martin insisted that I should go ahead and bake the cake but he doesn't know that you can't just move it once it's in the solar oven.