Last month, in the midst of our heatwave of "Aught Ten", I decided to try something totally out of the box.
This box.....
Meet my newest kitchen gadget.......
My new solar oven...aka as a 2003 Dodge Caravan....my Car/Oven Multi-Tasker!
Why not put the heat that builds up inside to good use since I wasn't using the car that day?
So I set to making up some chocolate chip cookie dough and plopped it onto an aluminum foil lined cookie sheet and placed the sheet on the dashboard of my car in full sun.
I also placed my oven thermometer next to the pan so I could check the actual temperature inside the car.
Pan and thermometer safely inside the car, I shut the door at 11am. and told the kids hanging out at the house that day not to open the car for ANY REASON!
Here's the pan after an hour baking.....
And here it is a couple of hours later.....
The dough has spread out and each cookies is ringed by liquified butter.....yum!lol
Two more hours and we have this.....
The butter has reabsorbed(or evaporated?)and the cookies have plumped up slightly.
And here is what we got after 6 hours of solar baking.....
They are paler than normal since solar doesn't 'brown' stuff like a regular oven but they are cooked and hard.
Since my oven thermometer never registered more than slightly hotter than 150 degrees, I did throw this pan of cookies into the normal oven for a good 5 minutes after snapping this photo.
I know....kind of defeats the whole purpose of the off-the grid thing, right?lol
My recipe had raw egg in it and I didn't want to risk the chance of a salmonella chaser with the chocolate chips so a few minutes above 180 degrees was worth doing.
The next time I will try a no-egg recipe instead now that I know my mobile oven's flaws in the temperature department.
And the verdict?
The kids gobbled these babies down and declared them delicious!
Next time how about a pizza too and a pitcher of sun tea?
Sluggy
This box.....
Meet my newest kitchen gadget.......
My new solar oven...aka as a 2003 Dodge Caravan....my Car/Oven Multi-Tasker!
Why not put the heat that builds up inside to good use since I wasn't using the car that day?
So I set to making up some chocolate chip cookie dough and plopped it onto an aluminum foil lined cookie sheet and placed the sheet on the dashboard of my car in full sun.
Pan and thermometer safely inside the car, I shut the door at 11am. and told the kids hanging out at the house that day not to open the car for ANY REASON!
Here's the pan after an hour baking.....
And here it is a couple of hours later.....
Two more hours and we have this.....
And here is what we got after 6 hours of solar baking.....
Since my oven thermometer never registered more than slightly hotter than 150 degrees, I did throw this pan of cookies into the normal oven for a good 5 minutes after snapping this photo.
I know....kind of defeats the whole purpose of the off-the grid thing, right?lol
My recipe had raw egg in it and I didn't want to risk the chance of a salmonella chaser with the chocolate chips so a few minutes above 180 degrees was worth doing.
The next time I will try a no-egg recipe instead now that I know my mobile oven's flaws in the temperature department.
And the verdict?
The kids gobbled these babies down and declared them delicious!
Next time how about a pizza too and a pitcher of sun tea?
Sluggy
