Car Cookies

'Tis the season for buying textbooks, rounding up school supplies, and trying to find a place to live while you're between housing contracts. Many college students opt to simply live in their cars. Snug and cozy, a car offers all the modern conveniences of home: air conditioning, radio, comfy leather seats...the list goes on. The one thing missing, though, is an oven. I recently found a solution to this problem: your car is an oven. Now freshly baked cookies are literally at your fingertips, transforming your car into a warm and welcoming student haven. You could even entertain house guests.

Because of the lower temperature, the cookies take much longer to bake in a car than in a normal oven. The texture was slightly different--more dense--and tops didn't brown, but all in all they weren't bad. I made them small so as to somewhat decrease the long cooking time, but it still took three hours. It probably would have been better to have started earlier on in the day. These were a fun little experiment and I may try to car-bake other things some day, but I really don't know what that would do. So let's just start with what we have.

1 Batch Cookie Dough--any kind will do. I used Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Dough

1. Roll dough into small balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Place sheet on an oven mitt on the dashboard of your car.

2. Making sure your car is parked in the sun and all the windows are up, close the doors and wait for 2 hours. To check if the cookies are done, lift the edge of one of the cookies. If it releases easily from the parchment, they're done. Also gently test the middle for done-ness. If they're not done, you may have to wait 30 more minutes, rather than just adding an extra 3-5.

3. Remove baking sheet with an oven mitt. Serve warm cookies immediately.

Mahlzeit!

-Coriaunty