Cooking in the Car: Popcorn

On Saturday, June 30, I tried another Cooking in the Car experiment; this time it was popcorn. I was up early that morning to cook myself some French toast for the start of le Tour and so I put some popcorn oil and a few kernels in a pan and placed it on the dash around 6:30 or so that morning.

Getting ready for the car

A look inside the pan

On the dash - early morning

On the dash - early morning

 I didn’t have any plan to leave the house on Saturday so the pan with the kernels had all day to sit on the dash and cook. The temperature hit a high of 105 on this particular day and I couldn’t wait to see if the exposure to the heat for hours on end would produce a bit of popcorn.

I went out to the car around 6:00 or so in the evening to collect the pan from the dash board; so, the pan was outside for around 11 and a half hours or so. Sadly, the kernels did not pop. I was really hoping they would but it was not meant to be. I did not put a lid on the pot as I do when I cook it on the stove – I don’t know if that would have made a difference or not. My guess is not. The pan was really hot to the touch and I had to sit it on the mail to bring it back into the house, but obviously it wasn’t hot enough to produce popcorn.

After sitting in the car all day

So, if you want popcorn on a hot summer’s day, you’d better rely on your stove or your microwave, or better yet, your local movie theater.