Science Sunday: Can you bake cookies in the car?

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by

Ticia
in

 

I’ve had “bake cookies in the car” on my to do list for years.  Ever since I saw a news report on “How to bake cookies in the car” back in college.  Then I saw someone had written an entire book on how to bake cookies in the car, and your entire dinner in the car.

can you bake cookies in the car

Now these people were in Arizona, so it gets above 100 degrees.  We’ve had a cool summer, and a few weeks ago we decided to try it.  Especially since Almost Unschoolers had tried to bake cookies in the car.  I really wanted to try baking cookies in the car.

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First we put cookies on two different types of cookies sheets, a stoneware sheet, and a metal one.  My theory was to see which one would cook better.

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Then we put the cookies on the dashboard, and commenced baking cookies in the car.  We’d go out and check on it occasionally, and they slowly cooked over the day.

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About noon the cookies we were baking in the car looked like this.  The kids were excited to see them baking.  It looked about the same on both sheets, so no obvious difference.  It’s rather like a slow cooker.

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At the end of the day, the cookies looked done on the top, but when you flipped them over it was rather doughy.  If you’re looking for excessively chewy cookies, these would fit the bill, but it really wasn’t done.

 

We talked through why it might not have worked, here’s our theories:

  • it’s just not possible to really cook in our car
  • our car was in the shade, maybe that made it too cool to work
  • maybe it wasn’t hot enough, but it was over 100 degrees that day, so we didn’t think that was likely.

Anyone tried baking cookies in the car?  What were your results?

 

I haven’t had internet access most of this week, I’m finishing writing and publishing this at a McDonald’s while the kids pester me for attention.  So, I obviously did not check your posts or get my favorites this week.  I’ve got about 3 leftover from last week that I’d planned to spotlight………  Best laid plans and all that.  Oh, and if you’re wondering about the snake, that set of pictures didn’t make it onto my lap top for whatever reason.

 

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Comments

13 responses to “Science Sunday: Can you bake cookies in the car?”

  1. Lula B Avatar
    Lula B

    I’ve never seen car baking before – very cool. I love mega-chewy cookies so this could be the cooking method for me!
    I’d love to link up my science post but can’t see the little widget?

    Reply
    1. Ticia Avatar
      Ticia

      Hmmmmm. I’ll try and find another McDonald’s later and figure out why it’s not working

    2. Ticia Avatar
      Ticia

      Linkie is up now, pasted in wrong code.

    3. Lula B Avatar
      Lula B

      Thanks! Impressed with what you can do with McDonalds wifi!

  2. Almost Unschoolers Avatar
    Almost Unschoolers

    Interesting – I’m glad I’m not the only one who couldn’t make it work – but also disappointed – I’d like to think it could work 🙂

    Reply
  3. Julie Avatar
    Julie

    We dried apples and plums in the car and that worked. We also built a solar oven and tried to cook cauliflower. After six hours in the Colorado heat and sunshine it had a strong smell and was still quite crunchy. It’s hot in there, but nothing compared with the oven. Cookies are usually baked around 375 F and I think car temperatures get up to 130 F? I like your analysis of it being like a slow cooker.

    Reply
  4. maryanne @ mama smiles Avatar
    maryanne @ mama smiles

    My brother did this a couple years ago – he was interning in San Antonio, and it was well over 100 degrees. I think he also used aluminum foil and a had a thermometer showing how hot the car was to help determine how long to cook them. I think his cooked in about 20 minutes!

    Reply
  5. Amber Hockman Avatar
    Amber Hockman

    I LOVE my cookies doughy, so I would have thoroughly enjoyed those cookies myself! ;0)

    Reply
  6. Claire Avatar
    Claire

    Yum! I wonder if the uk temperatures would be warm enough?

    Reply
  7. Phyllis at All Things Beautiful Avatar
    Phyllis at All Things Beautiful

    I, too, would like this to work….we had fun making s’mores with the sun’s heat.

    Reply
  8. Natalie Avatar
    Natalie

    I find it kind of disturbing that this is even possible and feel terrible for all those accidental deaths in overheated cars. Of course, it does open a lot of avenues of discussion and research 🙂

    Reply
  9. Jessica Avatar
    Jessica

    I had never heard about this before, but from reading what you write I think you would nee the car to be in full sunlight to make the most heat possible. If we had a car of our own we would try it! Its great when an experiment does not work to plan, gives you a chance to analyze everything 🙂

    Reply
  10. Kirsten @ Homeschool Discoveries Avatar
    Kirsten @ Homeschool Discoveries

    We did both car and solar oven cookies last summer on a slightly-over-100 degree day in Minnesota, and my car cookies got better done than my solar oven cookies (I think I linked up here last summer, but here’s my post about it: https://homeschooldiscoveries.com/2012/07/07/baking-cookies-in-a-solar-oven/).

    I think being in direct sunlight does help…however, they were still on the doughy side (but that’s tasty, right?). 🙂

    Reply

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