k0xxx
Mr. Sunshine
Today I decided to surprise my wife and bake her a pound cake in the solar oven while she was away for the day. I broke out the recipe book, made sure that I had all of the ingredients, and the assembled everything methodically in the order that they would be needed (or so I thought). Next, I put the oven out in the sun to warm up. After getting everything ready to pour into the pound cake pan, I realized that I had forgotten to get the pan out. I searched everywhere that I could think of, but there wasn't any pound cake pan to be found. I did find a bundt pan, and it was black, so it should heat up nicely. I remember thinking that "This will work out even better". 
I noticed was that the bundt pan must be smaller than the pound cake pan, because there wasn't a lot of of room left once I had poured the batter into it. No matter, it would just stick out a little. Unfazed I put the pan in the oven, and adjusted the oven for maximum sun. My plan was to continually readjust the pan for maximum sun every 15 to 30 minutes. As I was getting ready to make the first adjustment to the oven, a friend called and said that he was having car trouble, and asked if I could come tow him back home. He said that he had been on the way to a shop in a town about 60 miles away, but that he was only a mile out of town.
No problem. I slightly over adjusted the stove so that it peaked about 1 half hour later, it would only take me an hour at most to get back, and I should be just in time for the next adjustment. With a forecast high of 100 degrees, I was wishing that my old van had been equipped with A/C, but at least it has manual windows and they worked. When I got about a mile out of town, I couldn't locate my friend, so I called to get his exact location. He was a mile out from his destination, not from OUR town. Oh. Pound cake all but forgotten, I headed off to retrieve my friend. The tow back to a long time. There's nothing quite as fun, or as debilitatingly frightening, as towing another vehicle down a very steep hill on a winding two lane highway, with a semi 10 ft. behind the car that your towing, and realizing that there is a motor home broke down, pulled only halfway off of the road at the bottom of said hill, with heavy oncoming traffic.
By the time that I arrived home, three and a half hours later, I was hot, sweaty and physically spent, so I crawled onto my recliner and laid there in a fetal position. About twenty minutes later, as I was finally relaxed enough to start drifting off to sleep, when my wife walked through the door and asked, "What's in the solar oven?"
My cake as it went into the oven.
When I had gathered the courage to retrieve the cake I found that it had spilled out of the pan, and since the temperature had dropped before it was cooked, it had sunk.
This is what it looked like after wrestling it free from the pan. It was less than half the height that it should have been and very under cooked.
I had very gooey, but surprisingly delicious, cake for supper.
I noticed was that the bundt pan must be smaller than the pound cake pan, because there wasn't a lot of of room left once I had poured the batter into it. No matter, it would just stick out a little.
Unfazed I put the pan in the oven, and adjusted the oven for maximum sun. My plan was to continually readjust the pan for maximum sun every 15 to 30 minutes. As I was getting ready to make the first adjustment to the oven, a friend called and said that he was having car trouble, and asked if I could come tow him back home. He said that he had been on the way to a shop in a town about 60 miles away, but that he was only a mile out of town.No problem. I slightly over adjusted the stove so that it peaked about 1 half hour later, it would only take me an hour at most to get back, and I should be just in time for the next adjustment. With a forecast high of 100 degrees, I was wishing that my old van had been equipped with A/C, but at least it has manual windows and they worked. When I got about a mile out of town, I couldn't locate my friend, so I called to get his exact location. He was a mile out from his destination, not from OUR town. Oh. Pound cake all but forgotten, I headed off to retrieve my friend. The tow back to a long time. There's nothing quite as fun, or as debilitatingly frightening, as towing another vehicle down a very steep hill on a winding two lane highway, with a semi 10 ft. behind the car that your towing, and realizing that there is a motor home broke down, pulled only halfway off of the road at the bottom of said hill, with heavy oncoming traffic.
By the time that I arrived home, three and a half hours later, I was hot, sweaty and physically spent, so I crawled onto my recliner and laid there in a fetal position. About twenty minutes later, as I was finally relaxed enough to start drifting off to sleep, when my wife walked through the door and asked, "What's in the solar oven?"
My cake as it went into the oven.
When I had gathered the courage to retrieve the cake I found that it had spilled out of the pan, and since the temperature had dropped before it was cooked, it had sunk.
This is what it looked like after wrestling it free from the pan. It was less than half the height that it should have been and very under cooked.
I had very gooey, but surprisingly delicious, cake for supper.
We ALL have had our own cooking ...uh...learning curves. 
But you sound like a wonderful friend, and that's more important than an ole' pound cake!
