Don't Leave Your Pets in Hot Cars!

I'm sure everyone has heard of the heat wave we're having here in the South. Several months of 100+ degree days in a row with very little rain. And by very little, I basically mean NONE - we had a few minutes of sprinkles two weeks ago but I don't think that even counts. One of my coworkers heard about an experiment where a woman used her car as an oven to bake chocolate chip cookies. With daily temperatures at around 105 degrees we decided to give it a shot.

On Friday, August 5th at noon [CST] we took a metal pan [lined with wax paper] and set it on my car dashboard. I bought pre-made cookie dough at the store. We put small chunks of the dough about two inches apart on the wax paper and closed up the car [see pic 1 below]. Temperatures were around 107 that day according to my car thermometer. After about two hours in the car we checked on the cookies, and they were expanding and rising quicker than we expected [see pic 2 below]. We decided to leave them in the car another few hours to see if they would harden. Three hours and 45 minutes later [at 3:45pm CST] the cookies were done [see pic 3 below].

The moral of the story is PLEASE DON'T LEAVE YOUR PETS IN CARS THAT GET SO HOT THEY CAN BE USED AS OVENS!

Pic 1: The cookie dough is in
"the oven!"

Pic 2: After two hours in the
hot car...



Pic 3: Three hours and 45
mins later & they are done!