NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Craving a tasty snack but don’t want to fire up your oven with soaring temperatures outside? Would it be possible to bake cookies in a car in New Orleans – instead of using the oven?
New Orleanians continue to swelter through heat advisories and high temperatures. With all this heat must come some benefit.
WGNO conducted a delicious experiment to find out whether or not it was hot enough on Friday to bake cookies using only the New Orleans heat.
We began by letting the dough come to room temperature in the package.
At 2:30 p.m., the cookie dough was put on a baking sheet and placed on the dash of a WGNO news car that had been sitting in the hot sun. A thermostat on the dash showed a temperature of well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit inside the car.
An hour later, at 3:30 p.m., the cookies dough had turned into cookie mush. They had melted at this point, but we wanted to see what would happen if we left them longer.
By 4:30 p.m., the cookies had set! We ended the experiment here because we prefer our cookies on the gooier side. But there’s no question that within another half hour, our delicious treat would have been cooked to perfection by the New Orleans heat.
In total, the cookies baked for about two hours in temperatures above 105 degrees Fahrenheit.
Normally, the cookies would need to be baked at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 to 13 minutes.
Based on a WGNO newsroom taste test, we’ve determined that you can bake cookies in a hot car, but would not recommend doing it regularly as it can take some time!
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