Solar Baked Christmas Partybrot

Luckily for me my cousin invited us to Christmas dinner so I didn't have to cook much. It was a potluck kind of thing and of course I had to bring something from the Sun Oven. The main courses were covered - turkey, porchetta, and rib roast. Almost everyone else was bringing dessert. That left me with the rolls. The hardest part was the timing. I wanted to go visit the kitties at the Arizona Humane Society in the morning so I had to get two batches of bread dough ready for solar baking by 9:30 a.m. I measured out all the ingredients the night before, set my alarm for 5:30 a.m, got the first batch going in the breadmaking machine, and went back to bed. An hour and a half later I was up again to start the second batch, then it was back to bed for one more hour. The rolls had to rise one last time before going into the Sun Oven which at 9:30 a.m had reached 200ºF. I popped them in the Sun Oven and went off to play with the cats. I left instructions with the three people at home to keep an eye on them and take them out when the were brown. When I got back at 11:30 a.m. there wasn't a soul in sight, they'd gone out for a walk, the Sun Oven door was covered in condensation, and the rolls were brown. I got them out in the nick of time.

Solar Oven Partybrot

I have no idea why I decided to make this today apart from the fact that I thought it would be fun. Since I had to make two batches of dough, one white and one whole wheat, it wasn't ready to go into the sun oven when I had to leave for my 1:00 dentist appointment. By the time it was ready for the solar oven, at 2:50, the dreaded afternoon wispy cloud of the west had appeared. This cloud seems to show up every afternoon this time of year. It looks a little like a genie coming out of his bottle and blocks the sun just enough to make you think twice about attempting solar cooking. I really didn't want to turn on the indoor oven so I went ahead and put the partybrot in the sun oven anyway.

Now it was time to think about lunch. I'd been so busy with the dough and the dentist that I hadn't eaten yet. We went out for some sushi. We had intermittent sunshine for the rest of the afternoon but for the most part it was sunny enough to cast a shadow. When we got home the sun oven temperature was at 250º. By 4:50 the sun was completely blocked so I took the bread out of the oven. If the temperature had been higher it might have had a crispier crust but it was still very good.

It's Martin's boys night out and it looks like I'll be having my own private partybrot for dinner.