In the process of making a
solar cooker. I've wanted to try one for a long time. I'm going to try cooking something delicious tomorrow and will let you know how it goes:
I think I'm going to start easy and bake some cookies from
pre-made dough, just to see how this things cooks. I'm just going to leave it out during the day at school and make sure it is at a good angle to the sun as the day goes by. One of my students is bringing her solar tea kettle. We'll have a feast!
**Update** the cookies are "cooking," which translates to mean: I put them out in the sun on a black cookie sheet and now I'm waiting. No idea if this will work! I'll post pics a bit later!
We just used some
pre-made cookie dough and my student brought the tea and solar tea kettle from her house. Here we have the cookies as they'll look when we place them outdoors:
From what I've read you can cover your cooking with a glass lid or top or an oven backing bag (clear) to keep off flies and to trap heat but I'm just trying this today sans cover. (Haven't seen any flies yet so cross your fingers.) Honestly there will probably be more saw dust in these cookies than flies as my students are constructing medieval weapons today on the same balcony that the cookies are baking on.
Below are the cookies 25 minutes into baking. It's working!!!! I turned the sheet around to create oven baking. I'll probably have to keep rotating it every 20-25 minutes. The cookie sheet was HOT to the touch. Will use a hot pad for the next rotation:
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Update: It's 12:14 and the cookies still aren't cooked, but they're cooking. I've had to drag the cooker to follow the sun and at one point I found it in the shade, so I'm not sure how long this will take. The problem is we're on the third floor of the school and the outside patio has a big cover on it so I'm working with an angle of the sun. I wonder if they'll be done by this afternoon?
Update: Well I finally pulled the cookies out of the cooker at 2:30 as we started to clean up for the day. They had started to firm and crust up but were still raw and doughy in the middle. I had a few student volunteers thoroughly wash their hands and then pinch off bits of the cookies from the pan as they were too undercooked to pick up as single entities and eat. The cookies disappeared but I think that's because people like chocolate chip cookies cooked or uncooked. This is what they looked like at 2:30 when I pulled them off. One bummer about using store dough was how oily they were. I don't think homemade dough would have released this much oil (as homemade dough doesn't use oil).
I'm going to try another batch tomorrow. I'll start at the same time but try to position them in more direct sunlight the whole time. I'm very interested in seeing how good I can get at solar cooking with a homemade cooker as the ones I've seen online to purchase are fairly pricey. It would be great to know how to use one while we're sailing, especially in the South Pacific and other hot areas. The cabin will be unbearable if I have to use the oven or stop during the day to make meals.
