Solar Baked Vanilla Cupcakes Brighten Day

For some reason when I'm not feeling well I crave all things bland, and dairy. Baked potatoes with butter. Pasta with parmesan cheese and butter. Plain yogurt. Brie. White bread dipped in milk. That's pretty much what I've been eating since I got this toothache. It helps that most of these things are also easy to chew.

Today was the closest I've come in months to not getting any solar cooking done despite a sunny day. I had to be at the dentist at 8:30, and I have to go back tomorrow, then I took Martin to his doctor. We thought his incision was not healing properly, but it's doing fine. When we got home it was late and my tooth was hurting.

Once again a mix saved the solar cooking day. I baked some lovely vanilla cupcakes using a mix from Trader Joe's. I've mentioned before that neither of us like frosting very much so I topped them with whipped cream and fresh strawberries. For a little while, especially when I was trying to make one look pretty for the picture, they took my mind off my aching tooth.

Chocolate Cupcakes

I was so worried about getting something going by ten that I didn't even notice the clouds until I put the Sun Oven out to preheat. It was sunny, but the sky was covered with wispy clouds. I went ahead and set it up anyway; there was enough sun to cast a good shadow and that's really all you need.
I didn't have anything on hand to start dinner so I went to the pantry for a mix. A few weeks ago I bought a whole bunch made by Canterbury Naturals and so far they've all been pretty good. To cut down on the calories I substituted pureed pumpkin for some of the butter and for easy portion control made cupcakes instead of a loaf.
Despite the slightly overcast sky the Sun Oven quickly got up to 275º, a little lower than the 325º called for, but I just let the cupcakes bake a little longer. They came out nice and moist. We each had one for dessert with a little whipped cream. The rest will go into the freezer so we don't eat them all at once.