car cookies

I saw this instructable for dashboard baking and thought it was a great idea!  it's an idea that's been around for a while, but somehow I've never seen it.  anyway, it's WAY too hot to bake anything in the house from May-October, but I could go for some baking in the car.  it's an oven that's already always going, and your car smells like fresh baked cookies, so I just had to try it and see.

I grabbed some chocolate chip cookie dough and set up my car for baking.

 

I did a pan by itself, and one with the reflective sun screen thing around it just to see if it made a difference.

 

after 1 hour this is how they looked and the 150°F was holding steady - couldn't really tell a difference between the two pans.

 

after 2 hours they looked a little more cooked, but not quite done yet.  I think the pan with the reflector looked slightly more done at this point.

 

after 3 hours - no real difference between pans - temp still holding.

I pulled them out at 4 hours because they didn't look like they were changing anymore, and I needed to use the car.  I was hoping to see the brown bottoms like in the Instructables picture, but they just looked more dried and had these air pockets underneath... which kinda puzzled me.  they had a caramelized texture/flavor on the outside but were chewy on the inside, and they didn't feel or taste under-cooked.

I think if I wanted a more traditional cooked cookie I'd just put my toaster oven out on the patio and bake them that way if I didn't want to heat up the house in the future, but it was a cool experiment and they still tasted just fine - we ate them all that afternoon!