I’m an extremist when it comes to regulating temperatures. Well, I’m probably an extremist in other areas too, but most recently and notably, an extremist of our new Jotul woodstove. See, I’ve been freezing in our house. It’s near the end of October and I usually crank up the woodstove in September. This year, we have been remodeling and piecing together the piping, and… alas, we finally have heat! Have I mentioned we use wood as our primary source of heat? In fact, we shut off the breakers for the inefficient wall heaters, and use wood solo.
I am LOVING the woodstove. I love the cozy feeling of sitting in front of the fire, I love that the stove is still warm after a freezing high desert night when I get up in the morning. And I love that I can cook on it. When we were researching different woodstoves, this was high on my priority list of must-haves. I have basically cooked soups, stews, and stir fried on my last stove. But with this new stove comes a desire to experiment and see what all this stove has to offer me.
Last night, I got up the gumption to try baking on the Jotul. I burned the wood till it was red hot, literally. I had beautiful, glowing orange coals covering the bottom of the stove. I used my cast iron skillet to create an air base, placed my round stone pan over it and then topped it off with an upside down dutch oven to created the top air space. It’s important to have that space on the bottom, as it burns easily if placed directly on the stove top. Then I let it do it’s thing… and waited for the tell-tale sign of completion: the yummy aroma of baked cinnamon rolls. It took about an hour and a half, and in that time I added two extra logs to keep the heat steady. Of course, this was not scientifically done, as I never used a thermometer, just eyed my pile of coals. It worked!
The cinnamon rolls were beautiful! The tops were a golden brown, they rose and the bottoms never burned. Here, take a look:
And here is the finished product:
Oh, and we’re heating up to 80+ degrees in our house, walking around in tank tops and LOVING it!
We used two pints of organic Straus Whipping Cream. I chose this because it comes in cute little glass containers which can either be returned to the store for reuse and recycling, but we reuse it in our home.
His ingenious idea has made plastic bag washing and drying a delight in our household! The washed bags simply sit on the rack, drip water right back into our kitchen sink, and are whisked away to the drawer for use in another life. 
It will get another use this summer when my herbs are in full bloom: an herb dryer!
