A Word about Wonder Ovens

We have been counseled to store a year's worth of food and fuel where possible. The food I have but fuel is a whole other issue. I quickly realized that it was logistically impossible to store a year's worth of any kind of fuel for a family as large as mine. Especially considering the types of food we store, long grain rice, dry beans, etc. Items that have to boil for hours to be edible. I was looking at mountains of propane, or charcoal, or whatever. Just not feasible.



Then I discovered the Wonder Oven.




The concept is not new, people in poor countries have been using something similar for a long time but now they are being re-purposed for food storage. It's basically an insulating crock-pot consisting of an 18 gallon Rubbermaid, 2 special pillows, and a pot. Together with a one burner stove, it dramatically reduces how much fuel you need to cook your food. You can easily store enough fuel for a year.

How it works is you heat up the food item you want to cook to boiling on your one burner stove, or over a fire, and then boil a short time. Transfer the boiling pot to your wonder oven with the insulating pillows completely surrounding the pot inside the Rubbermaid. Leave unopened the specified amount of time and Ta-Da! Perfectly cooked food using only a few minutes worth of fuel!

I know it sounds like it won't work. That is what I thought the first time I heard of it. But it does work, and it works well. In fact once I got a wonder oven I got mad at how much energy I waste using my regular oven. :)

I mostly bake bread in my wonder oven, but you can do anything in them, even beans. In fact you can boil dry beans, put them in your wonder oven in the morning, and they are ready to eat by evening, no soaking, or cooking on the stove top for hours.

Wonder ovens can be bought or made. I made mine, and one for all my siblings as well. :) You can find the patterns for the pillows online, plus sewing instructions. The pillows are filled with polystyrene pellets, like the ones you find in bean bags. That is what insulates the pot and keeps in the heat for cooking. It is amazing how well it works. Put the boiling pot in in the morning and you will still need pot holders hours later just to get the pot out.

If you would rather just purchase a wonder oven, I have a friend that loved them so much she decided to start making them and sell them. She has a website you can check out. There you will find lots more information, helpful tips, and recipes.

I really feel like this was an answer to my prayer about storing fuel. Of course don't wait until you have to live off food storage to use it. I use mine frequently, especially during the summer. It allows me to bake bread, and cook food without heating up the house. That is almost a miracle in and of itself. It's also useful during a power outage. Take the time to check them out.

Here are some pictures of me using the wonder oven to bake bread.

Make your favorite bread recipe as usual and let rise until double.

Then punch down and divide into 3 equal parts (I use a small scale to make sure they are equal weight). Place into greased large V-8 cans and put in your pot with warm water. Water should come about half way up the can and your pot should be as small as possible while still allowing the lid to close snugly.

Let rise in the pot with the lid on until dough is about 1 inch from the top of the cans. Remove cans from pot and cover with tinfoil.

Secure tinfoil to can with tape or rubber band and place back in pot of water on the stove. Bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes.

Immediately remove from heat but DO NOT remove the lid. Quickly transfer entire pot to wonder oven. Place on bottom pillow and cover with the top pillow. Do not disturb for at least 2 hours. You can leave it as long as you want. Food will not burn or over bake. Feel free to run errands while your bread is baking!

After at least 2 hours remove bread from wonder oven. Slide out of can. You will notice right away that this bread does not have a crust. My kids LOVE it!


Cut into slices and you have nice round bread that is the perfect size for sandwiches!



Here is a YouTube video of how to use a Wonder Oven from the lady that introduced me to it: WonderOven Teaser.