Steaming Dried Baked Goods

The other day, while preparing to bake some cornbread, I peeked in the oven to make sure there was nothing in there before I preheated it. I found forgotten treasure: some scones Michelle had made a week before!

We welcomed the unexpected bounty of the next morning’s breakfast suddenly arranged, but soon realized that the scones had dried out considerably as they sat, neglected, in the oven.

No problem. Michelle took care of it with this simple process, a variation on the steaming we do instead of microwaving when we want a fast, hot meal without drying it out (see Fast Cooking: Steam Vs. Microwave):

The inside of the pan arranged (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).

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Limits to Power: DC-DC Converter

I spoke in the previous post of an adjustment to our off-the-grid power system:

If you go back and read blog follower comments on our posts, you may be familiar with Ekij. In response to our post, LED Light Update, he suggested adding a DC-DC converter to our system to save wear and tear on our DC system as it tries to utilize the higher voltage of our nickel-iron (Ni-Fe) battery. He suggested this one as an example (paid link); I ordered it, and it seems to work well.

DC-DC Converter

The new DC-DC Converter, installed (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).

DC-DC Converter

Here it is again in the dark, so you can see the readout better. I’ve since adjusted the step down more, to about 13 volts (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).

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