Solar Cooker Baguettes

It's hot here in Georgia.  Flippin' hot.  What's a girl to do?  

Mostly I hide down below, where we have some minimal AC (usually it's around 85 degrees in the boat).  But this weekend I got a hankering for some fresh-baked bread.  No way was I going to fire up the oven in the boat, so I broke out the solar oven.  This is the thermal version of "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

My amazing parents gifted us a GoSun Sport solar oven a couple of years ago.  I generally like the oven, although it has limitations.  One the one hand, it's small and straightforward.  On the other hand, it's small and hard to clean, especially on a boat.  It's great for things like pieces of meat or burritos.  I find it has limitations for things like rice though (I'm determined to solve the problem and use it more).  I've seen others make bread.  Given the very bright object in the sky that's smashing us with radiation, I thought I'd give it a try.

My recipe is very simple -- 2 parts flour to 1 part water plus a little salt.  I proof the yeast in the water with a little honey.  I could go no-knead with this but decided to give it a good knead just for fun.  After letting it rise and double in volume, I punched it down and divided it into two balls.  The GoSun was perfect for each 1/2 recipe.

Mixing the dough in the warmth of our galley

Pre-bread

Once a loaf was loaded into the canister, out in the blazing sun it went.  Just how strong is the sun here in Georgia?  One way to find out:  get out the UV heat gun and measure the temp on the dock:  142 degrees.  YIKES.  Bad for us, bad for the environment, great for cooking bread.  

When we say it's hot, we mean it's hot.

Under these conditions, the bread was mostly cooked after 45 minutes.  I pulled the canister out and removed the parchment paper at that point, but put the bread back in to brown up.

Mostly cooked but not browned.

Another 15 minutes and we had an amazing load of bread.  It was nice and browned and smelled incredible.  They say you're supposed to let bread cool before slicing it, but seriously, who do they think they're talking to?  Wait?  No way.  We sliced off a couple of chunks of baguette to check it out.

It looked great and smelled even better!

It was really good!

The verdict?  B for aesthetics and A+ for flavor/texture.  If any of you wonder why we're getting wider and wider, it's because we'll be enjoying solar cooker bread from now on.

Dinner featured split pea soup and grilled baguette (the sky clouded up for the second loaf so it didn't brown).  We love a terrific dinner aboard the boat.