Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Dashboard Baking - FINISHED!!!




Aw yeah! It is THAT hot!

This week is brutal weather all over the nation. Here in North Texas, it is about 110 this week. Currently, as of 3pm, it is 107 degrees, according to the Weather Channel. But I am pretty sure that is wrong. What is the temperature on the sun? It is about 10 degrees cooler here.
The hot part of the day goes from 4-6pm here. So, you can imagine...



Let's make lemonade out of lemons, shall we????

1:30pm - we arrive home from errands. We pull into our sunny driveway, and roll up all the windows.

2:30 pm - The interior of the van reads 175 degrees. After just an hour.

After one hour of pre-heating.... Scary....

 I had the temp gauge with me on errands, and even with the windows open, when we returned to the car, the interior was 150 degrees.

That is why we do not leave children or animals in vehicles, folks. Check twice!

2:30-2:45 pm - we prepare our food. I chose to use Nestle's take-and-bake cookies, rather than mix it up myself. Because it is that hot.

Cookie Boy adding "Chocolate Chip Lovers" Nestle break-apart cookies!

Looking good!

The Young Adult adds Nestle "Oatmeal Scotchies". I think those are going to be yummers!

Might as well rustle up an egg, too!

 2:45 - We head to the van....

...and then the genius brothers headed right back in to PUT ON SHOES! Duh!

2:45-2:55 - we arrange our food. We placed the cookie sheets on paper and pot holders to protect the dashboard. After only 5 minutes in the car, I touched the pan to move it, and burned my finger!
Um, yeah...looks hot....

The chocolate immediately began to melt.

2:55pm - we finish, close and lock the van.
Cook, baby, cook!

3:20 - We check on our food, after letting it bake for 20-25 minutes. The interior of the van is almost at 175 again (it went down to 160 while we were placing the food inside).

The cookies are spreading quite well. Scary!

The ones in front are more melty than the ones in back.

While not cooked yet, the yolk has clearly "set".
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3:40 pm - I went outside to turn the pan around. We want those cookies to bake evenly, now!
You could actually hear the aluminum foil popping.

4:10 - Went out to check. The one small tree in our teeny-tiny backyard was starting to throw shade onto the driveway.
Shade=bad; sun=good. At least, when you want to bake cookies!

So, I pulled the van down the driveway, into the seat, and back into the full heat from the sun.
I had to use pot holders to touch the steering wheel.

Park and bake!

The egg yolk is very set.


The cookies seem to be almost done. You can move the edges. But they are still a little too soft. So, 10 more minutes....



And - for the record - it smells FABULOUS in the van!!!!

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4:30pm -

We head back out to check on the progress of our van cookery.

Shoes ON!
 They learned their lesson well. If it is hot enough to bake cookies in a van, it is hot enough to burn your feet on the concrete!


Checking...


The egg was done.

Firm enough to touch (but Cookie Boy kept complaining it was hot!)

 A practically perfect yolk!

The yolk is soft enough to pick up via fork, but firm enough that it does not slide off.

The yolk was fully cooked. Really, it was over-cooked. The outside was kind of rubbery. It was soft inside, but not at all runny. The egg white stayed transparent, but was very hard to the touch!

The cookies were not quite ready. Close - but still a little too soft in the middle.

Almost ready!


5:30pm - the cookies are DONE! The temp gauge stayed between 150-175, and it took a total of 3 hours to get the cookies fully baked.

It smells soooo good!

Shhhh - don't tell. I tried one out. Someone had to make sure they were fit to eat....

They smell amazing.
But we are waiting until after dinner to eat them.

6:30pm - DESSERT!!!!!
The cookies were very, very yummy. They were home-baked soft. The chips were still melty.

Cookie Boy digs in. Stinker! He took the one I wanted!

Blissfully happy!

The Young Adult tries out, and approves, the Oatmeal Scotchies!

Fully baked front

Fully baked back

MmmmmMMmmmmmMMMMMMmmmm!!!!


This was a very successful experiment. While we wish it was not so hot, at least now we have some kind of reward for this miserable weather! And we did not heat up the house to do it!

THE END!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOVE IT!! Though my favorite part was forgetting the shoes ;)
--Stacee M

Unknown said...

Awesome!! I told my husband about this when I read it yesterday, before they were finished. He said we are SO going to try this, lol! :)

Neen said...

Too cool! My kiddos are inspired. They wanted to bake cookies and I wouldn't let them "heat the house up". Why not use what we have. The surface of the sun (North of Houston heat) and car (aka oven). Thanks for being the fun mom that tried it and posted.