Sometimes, extreme hot summer weather coincides with the craving for freshly baked homemade cookies. I didn't want to turn on the oven to bake though. Just the thought of having a 350 F oven in the house was enough to make me sweat. But I couldn't leave that cookie craving unsatiated, so I looked for an alternative. Can cookies be baked in a microwave oven? I tested five different times and power settings...
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| Microwave used: 1200 watt Panasonic microwave |
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| Flour for a small batch of cookies: whole wheat flour on left, peanut flour on right; sugar, salt, baking powder in middle |
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| Dough with wheat bran stirred in |
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| Cookie before "baking" |
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| After baking |
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| Cookie bottoms after baking |
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| Sample 1: heated at 70% power for 1 min 30 sec. Looked well baked and dry on top, but had a burnt patch on inside. |
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| Sample 2: heated at 50% power for 1 min 30 sec. Appeared light and dry on the outside with a small burnt patch inside. |
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| Sample 3: Heated at 100% power for 50 seconds. Burnt marks on the outside with centre converted into charcoal. Emitted acrid burnt smell; potentially carcinogenic. |
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| Sample 4: heated at 100% power for 30 seconds. Exterior looked slightly translucent, moist and soft. Inside texture resembled stale dry cake. |
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| Sample 5: heated at 100% power for 35 seconds. Appeared just like the one above but slightly drier. |
Overall, cooking at 50% power for 1 min 30 seconds appeared to give the best result. The cookie was crunchy through out , but I had to cut off the burnt patch. None of the power and time settings were able to achieve results a conventional oven would because the microwave cooks food from the inside out. Since my cookies were rather thick, I guess rolling them out thinner next time might help get a more even "bake". The microwave seems to be better at cooking food that remains a higher moister content after cooking and so maybe I should be trying a microwave cake recipe instead. Saving that for next time...
I guess this will have to do for now until the weather cools a bit and I can actually face using the oven. Hope you enjoyed this sequence!
