13 Jul, 2012
Liveblogging: Our car is an oven (a.k.a. the great cookie experiment)
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Challenge me, challenge you|Ottawa
FYI: The most recent updates are at the bottom of this post.
How many times have you climbed into your car and thought: IT FEELS LIKE AN OVEN IN HERE? Our car is parked outside in full sun, and this is something that runs through my mind every day.
Last summer we fried an egg on the driveway, and this summer I thought it’d be neat to bake cookies in the car. You know, to see if our car really IS an oven.
I didn’t want to waste precious eggs, flour and butter on this experiment so yesterday we dropped by Bulk Barn to buy a just-add-water cookie mix. This morning I made drop cookies on a single non-stick cookie sheet.
7:58 a.m. – I’m already thinking this experiment would have had better odds of success if I’d chilled the dough and rolled it out to make thinner cookies. But we’re going with something close to drop cookies here instead:
8:05 a.m. – The girls and I brought the cookies downstairs and put them on the dashboard. I hope my neighbours weren’t watching.
I will be monitoring the interior temperature of the car with our weather sensor. One half is in the car’s cup holder, the other is upstairs for easy access.
Here’s the first shot (it’s warmer inside the apartment right now. HA HA.):
8:26 a.m. – Here is the weather forecast for today. Think I’ll have baked cookies by five o’clock?
10:30 a.m. – I’m thinking that if this doesn’t work out it’s no big loss. I’ll just mix the semi-baked cookies into vanilla ice cream. Temperature update: it’s 40C in the car right now.
11:20 a.m. – It’s 45C in the car right now. Mark thinks I should have put the weather sensor on the dashboard in the full sun. Thoughts?
12:10 p.m. We’re up to 51°C in the car. Here’s what it looks like from our apartment window right now:
1:20 p.m. – Oh boy it’s hot out there. And in the apartment too. :(
1:21 p.m. – A thought: this isn’t going to damage our car, is it?!
1:45 p.m. – 63°C in the car right now. (!!) It’s getting really hot, really fast.
2:10 p.m. – 66°C !
2:36 p.m. – 67°C !
3:10 p.m. – 68°C ! I think they’re close to being done but I don’t want to let all the heat out of the “oven” just yet. What do you think?
3:15 p.m. – This has all been very fun but we cannot forget that every summer we hear all kinds of news stories of people leaving children and pets in the car. This shouldn’t be news. A vehicle is TRULY an oven. The air inside just gets hotter and hotter, even if it’s cloudy or the window is cracked a little bit. Under no circumstances should a child or a pet be left in a car … even for just a minute.
Ok? Back to the usual tomfoolery. Next update to come at 4:00. I think I’ll do a taste test.
4:15 p.m. – We have decided the cookies are done! They are a little on the soft side but they taste great, the car smells fabulous, and there was no damage to the dashboard. Yay! Final temperature in there was 68°C in case you were wondering.
I might actually do this again sometime. The cookies were good, and this saves me from having to turn the oven on!
Thanks to everyone who cheered us on today. Happy Friday! :)
