In hot weather, those of us who drive are familiar with the sensation of getting into the car and having it feel like an oven inside. A car is a essentially sealed metal box with large windows, thus on a sunny summer day it has more in common with a greenhouse, and in a heatwave this can become unbearable. But does it get hot enough for cooking? [Julian Lozos] aimed to find out, by cooking Icelandic rúgbrauð using only a 2016 Honda and the California sunshine.
Rúgbrauð is a traditional Icelandic rye bread that’s traditionally cooked by geothermal energy buried in the ground for around a day in proximity to a hot spring. A car dashboard gets pretty hot in a California heatwave, so it’s not unreasonable to expect that it might replicate this environment. He parked the Honda on a street in the sun, placed a pot full of dough on the dashboard, and waited.
The maximum temperature measured was 86.5 C (187 F), but unfortunately the sun didn’t stay high enough to maintain that temperature for the required time. After two days in the car the crust was cooked but the interior was still gooey, so the experiment can’t be said to have been successful. He does make the point though that a less traditional and much thinner loaf using a wide and flat tray might have delivered a better result.
We’re intrigued by this experiment, almost enough to try something like it ourselves were the summer not beginning to wane in these more northerly climes. Have any of you tried cooking in a hot car, or would we need a solar oven? Give us your views in the comments.
We used to wrap steaks in tinfoil, place them in the engine bay while driving across New Mexico on vacation.
When we arrived… the dinner was ready.
This was done by GI’s back in WWII: ‘How to pull a hot dinner out of a jeep’
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/45/21/5c/45215c756307a9e0c62bbbe8f23f9e56–vintage-jeep-soup.jpg
They make them for snowmobiles: https://www.amazon.com/kemimoto-Snowmobile-Stainless-Muffler-Compatible/dp/B08MFF64BR
I seem recall mythbusters cooking a christmas dinner on their engines
Exhaust manifold oven is a somewhat common 4×4 mod.
Back in the late 70s I used to work at a Texaco station as mechanic and pump jockey (complete with uniform and star) in Oak Ridge, TN when I was in my late teens. One of our regular customers had an older Pontiac with a huge rear window and she had towels and paper spread out under it and used to sun dry her fruits and vegetables there in the summer! I always admired her creativity
That seems more practical than cooking/baking in a hot car!
This is why you don’t leave dogs, or babies, locked in cars. The heatwave warnings here include mention of that.
Depends on how you like them cooked. Waste to cook a tender baby well done. But a tough obnoxious teen? Low and slow it the way to go.
YES! Every summer an average of 40 kids/babies die in the U.S. alone due to this very tragedy. Not to mention the animals.
Anywhere in the SW American desert you can get higher than that in the summer. SoCal is temperate and you want to start at +42C for best effects
Manifold Destiny
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold_Destiny_(cookbook)
I once left an apple in the cup hole near the gear shift handle during a summer shinny and hot Sunday just after breakfast or so with the car at a mall parking lot.
While returning around mid afternoon after shopping spree, the apple was like it had been cooked in an oven!! Just amazing
This is why we use a windshield sun shade, and a remote start for climate control.
Of course you can cook food on a dashboard if you have a black or dark gray interior. Congrats, you’ve discovered solar ovens. If you don’t have a car you can make your own oven using a cardboard box with a black painted interior and a sheet of thick acrylic to go over the top.
Black pot, aluminum foil lined interior.
I haven’t cooked food in a car, but I remember a project where we were concerned about the temperatures a piece of car-mounted equipment might have to endure. My ad hoc measurements came up with similar figures to those measured by [Julian Lozos], which were survivable by the electronics, but would cause the (1980s tech) LCD to turn black. In the end we agreed with the customer that their users would never be expected to occupy a car that was so hot anyway. This led me to look up the record for human heat endurance, which was (ISTR) 160C. Or as I expressed it in my report, gas mark 3. :)
Buddy cooked ribs the night before,so leftovers I suppose,but bonus of already cooked to temp? Lunch the day after,decided it’s a sin in Texas to microwave ribs,and after a short period of dismay,realized it’s full swing summer and 110 degrees average,and people bake cookies on their dash,right? Hour or so later,my tin foil wrapped leftover ribs were literally sizzling, luckily I didn’t have to clean the dash of any leakage. Best ribs ever.