It started with a challenge: find creative ways to save energy. Add to that challenge this intense Texas heat wave, it wasn’t too hard to come up with an answer. Car Baking. Specifically, baking cookies inside our cars. 
Our research indicated that if your car gets hot enough inside, it will actually bake cookies. But we were skeptical – would it really work? As we learned from the parking lot of our headquarters on a recent hot Texas afternoon, it does work! Keep reading for the recipe that gives you an alternative way to have an afternoon snack without heating up your kitchen or using energy!
A Step-by-step Guide to Baking Cookies in Your Car
- Put a temperature gauge in your car and make sure your car is at 150-160 degrees inside. That’s how hot it needs to be to kill the bacteria in the eggs. We chose a sunny day when temperatures were in the high 90’s.
- Place store-bought cookies on a parchment-lined cookie sheet (The parchmant paper is KEY! Foil will result in cookies that take a bit longer to bake while parchmant yields crunchy cookies!)
- Put the cookie sheet as flat as possible on the dashboard of your car and let the cooking begin!
- Check on the cookies after an hour — but don’t open the car doors. You’ll let out the hot air and significantly increase your cooking time.
- In about 2 – 2 1/2 hours, the cookies should be done. But check from the windshield before opening the doors. In our experiment, some cookies took longer to bake.
Now you can enjoy your snack and the savings you’ll get from not using your oven.Have your own creative ideas to save energy? Share them with us on Twitter and Facebook #sparkingnewideas.
