Bread

Helpful Hints

Use your favorite recipe, or frozen bread dough from the store. After dough has raised in a well-oiled dark pan with lid, put it into preheated 250°-300°F oven and bake 1 1/2 to 2 hours, refocusing once during cooking period (if convenient).

When crust is firm and golden brown, turn loaf out onto a rack to cool.

The solar oven is an excellent place to raise yeast breads during the winter months.

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Zucchini Loaf

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup oil

2 cups grated zucchini

2 cups sugar

Beat above ingredients until light. Add:

3 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

3 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Chopped nuts if desired

Place in dark pan. Cover. Cook for 2 to 3 hours in a solar oven. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes and then remove from pan.

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Dutch Rye Bread

4 cups rye meal

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons molasses

3 to 3 1/2 cups boiling water

1 cup cracked wheat

1 tablespoon kelp powder

2 tablespoons oil

Mix all ingredients together. Cover and let stand overnight. Add more wheat flour if necessary in order to shape loaf. Roll loaf in wheat germ. Place loaf in loaf pan and place in a dark colored pan, cover, and cook in solar oven all day or all afternoon. When completely cooled, wrap in moist towel, waxed paper or plastic, and refrigerate for one or two days before serving with butter, cream cheese, to accompany soups, etc.

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Beer Bread

3 cups self-rising flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 12-oz. can of beer, at room temperature

cheese slices

Mix first three ingredients together and place in buttered black pan with lid. Place cheese slices on top. Cover. Cook in solar oven for 2 or 3 hours.

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Easy French Bread

1 package yeast

2 cups water

4 1/2 cups white flour

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons salt

Dissolve yeast in one cup lukewarm water. Sift flour with sugar and salt into a large bowl. Stir in dissolved yeast. Add just enough of the second cup of water to hold dough together. Mix until dough is sticky. Cover with a cloth and let rise until doubled. Butter or grease a round roaster and add dough to dark pan. Let rise another half hour. Cover. Bake in solar oven until golden brown, about 2 hours.

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Foolproof Whole Wheat Bread

2 tablespoons dry yeast

5 cups hot water

2/3 cup oil

12 cups whole wheat flour (or 7 cups whole wheat flour & 5 cups white flour)

1/2 cup warm water

2 tablespoons salt

2/3 cup honey or sugar

Sprinkle yeast into 1/2 cup warm water. Let stand 10-15 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon sugar. Combine the remaining 4 1/2 cups hot water with 7 cups whole wheat flour in a large bowl. Add salt, oil and honey or sugar. Continue mixing until well blended. Add 1 cup flour to mixture. Add prepared yeast to mixture and blend thoroughly. Add 3 to 4 more cups of flour.

Knead for 10 minutes or until there is a consistency like cookie dough. A stickier dough will result in moister bread.

Oil hands and divide dough into 4 parts. Mold into loaves on oiled counter. Place in oiled pans. Oil top of loaves if soft crust is desired.

Cover loaves with damp cloth and let rise 1/3 in bulk.

Place loaf pans in dark pans with lids, or insert an empty loaf pan on top of each loaf of dough. Cover. Place in solar oven by 11 a.m. Cook 2 1/2 hours.

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Cornbread A La Sol

Dry Ingredients:

1/2 cup corn meal

1/2 cup corn flour

1 cup white flour

2 tablespoons baking powder (preferably aluminum-free)

3 tablespoons sugar

pinch salt

Liquid Ingredients:

1 egg

3 tablespoons oil

1 cup milk

Blend the liquid ingredients together. Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Pour into a 7 x 11 inch pan (preferably one with the underneath painted black). Bakes in about 1 to 2 hours. Consider it done when 'fault lines' appear to be running along the top.

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Heather's Wheat Berry Bread

2 cups wheat berries

Flour for dusting

Water for sprouting

Sprout the wheat berries for a day. Rinse the sprouts and grind them to a paste. Lighly dust the inner container of a box solar oven with the flour. Shape the ground sprouts into a mound and place in the inner container. Let the bread bake in the solar cooker for the day.

Comments: I made this bread in a solar on the roof of a building in Allahabad, India. The recipe worked well in the winter and summer, but not during the monsoon. The bread is similar to "manna bread" available in the US. It is sticky, moist, and sweet. Additions such as raisins or dates could be nice.