Baking Bread in the Sun Oven

Thanks to my mom and dad, I'm now a proud owner of a Sun Oven (sunoven.com)

I've been anxious to test it out.

I put the oven outside before I started to mix up my bread in order to warm it up. Just like a regular oven you want to get the Sun Oven up to temperature.

I was using this the second week of October in NJ. It was quite a warm day actually and only took about 30 minutes to warm up to 350 degrees.

I've seen a few pictures where four loaves fit in the oven. I only baked two because it was my first try and I didn't want to ruin four. I baked my other two loaves in the conventional oven. I was surprised at the difference.

This picture was taken just before I opened the oven to take out the bread. Let me warn you. This this is HOT!!! It's 350 degrees. Please make sure you have your oven mitts handy, you're going to need them. And it's daggum hot just getting into the oven with the reflectors doing their thing, you may need to don a pair of sunglasses as well. Just be careful.

There they all. All baked and yummy.

I didn't put enough dough in each of the pans so my bread is a little flat. That's all my fault. Again, I wasn't trusting the Sun Oven with a full loaf. Oh me of little faith. This bread was perfect. It browned evenly and the Sun Oven retains moisture so the bread comes out just lovely. It's not even a bit dried out.

See that! Perfect. I highly recommend adding a solar oven to your emergency supplies. You can cook in it all year long. I'm looking forward to trying it during the dead of winter. The oven doesn't even have to be used only for an emergency, it can be used to cut down on other energy costs, cuz the sun is free!