Cooking Gluten-Free in a Solar Oven

Gluten Free Cooking with the Solar Oven from Vivian's Live Again

I hate turning on the oven during the summer.  Summer casseroles, cookies, cakes and bread were rare at our house until I started baking with a Sun Oven® about 10 years ago.  I LOVE my Sun Oven. It is easy to use and lets me cook my favorites without heating up the house.  I especially like making our fudgy brownies or casseroles made with vegan cream of chicken or mushroom soups in it.  A solar oven is ideal for cooking gluten free.

If you are interested in learning more, the SunOven.com site is very helpful and has tips on focusing the oven and baking.  With the advent of summer, I thought I would pass on a few tips on using a SunOven for their gluten-free baking.

Pans: The best pans are lidded and non-reflective.  Lids keep in heat and steam and decrease cooking times.  I cover casseroles with foil then put a black kitchen towel over the foil to minimize reflection.

Not all 9×13 pans will fit in the oven so check first.  One way around this is to use a deeper but shorter pan.  This is especially effective for casseroles.

Time:  Most things take a bit longer to bake in the SunOven®.  Usually, main dishes are done when the glass steams up.  For most baked goods a fogged glass is a clue that it is getting close to being done.  It is difficult to burn things in the solar oven so if you are unsure, let it go longer.  You can also take the internal temperature of the item.  Taking the temperature is especially helpful for meat and bread.  Gluten-free bread should have a temperature of 200-205° F to be done.

Temperature: Preheat the oven and refocus periodically throughout cooking to maintain a high temperature.

Using as a slow cooker: You can mimic a slow cooker and put your food in before you leave and have it done when you return by placing your food in the oven and focusing the oven to where the sun will be halfway through the time you will be gone.

Bread tips:  Don’t let your bread rise before putting it in the oven or it will rise too high and fall.

Pasta tips:  Add pasta, water, salt and oil to your pan and place it in the sun oven.  Stir one to two times during the cooking process or it will bake into a brick.  For your first time I recommend using a shaped pasta like a macaroni or tubes that don’t pack tightly together.

Cookies: Cookies are the only thing I have ever burned in the Sun Oven® because of the high sugar content. Baking time is still pretty forgiving, but not as much as other foods.

It is hard to bake many cookies at once in the oven but you can stack small cookie sheets in opposite directions.  I prefer to make a large batch of dough and freeze into cookie balls, then just bake a few cookies as needed.

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