Protecting families from contaminated food and water
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Protecting families from contaminated food and water
Posted in Food Safety,Our Blog on July 11, 2026
How safe are dashboard cookies?
I’m sure you have seen some of the viral food videos going around. Some people are attempting to cook a lasagna in their mailbox. Others are cooking eggs on the sidewalk. Today we are talking about those involving baking cookies on your vehicle’s dashboard.
Is it safe?
Let’s find out.
It isn’t just TikTok that spurs viral trends. Sometimes the news does it too. And has done so for decades.
While the vehicle and the city change from piece to piece, there are some commonalities.
There is a local heat wave. Someone gets the idea that it is so hot in the car. “I bet I can bake cookies in it.”
So, they try it. Lo and behold, something resembling a cookie emerges some undetermined time later.
Who doesn’t love a soft, ooey, gooey chocolate chip cookie.
But will it make you sick?
As someone who researches food safety topics on a near daily basis, my skeptical mind had to know. Follow along and you will too.
But first, you may be wondering why it wouldn’t be. People eat raw cookie dough all the time.
But as with most things… Just because people do it, doesn’t mean it is safe. So, lets back things up a bit and talk about why raw cookie dough is a recipe for disaster.
It might be tempting to take a bite of that raw cookie dough before you bake it. But there are several reasons why you shouldn’t. Certain raw ingredients pose a serious health risk because they commonly harbor harmful germs. Germs that are only killed during a sufficient heat process. Namely, raw egg and uncooked flour.
Raw cookie dough, by definition, does not benefit from that heat treatment.
The most logical reason you do not want to eat raw (or undercooked) cookie dough involves the presence of eggs. Raw eggs.
Unless you have been living under a rock, most people understand that raw eggs likely contain germs that can make you sick.
It is, in fact, synonymous with Salmonella. Though other foodborne germs like Listeria and E. coli have been commonly associated with this vital protein source.
Those germs do not magically disappear because you add sugar and baking soda. Flour has its own risks. But more on that in a moment.
Eggs and egg containing dishes must reach a safe minimum internal temperature, says the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). That temperature is 160° F.
But eggs aren’t the only concern when it comes to raw or undercooked cookie dough.
Believe it or not, flour also poses a health risk in raw cookie dough.
If this surprises you, you aren’t alone. A 2019 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) survey found that most people in the United States do not see raw flour as a risky food.
But it is.
Flour is not a food that comes heat treated. Therefore, it could contain a variety of harmful germs.
Before this flour makes its way into our homes, it grows in the field where it can become contaminated through irrigation water or animal feces. Once harvested, the grains are ground and sometimes bleached, but at no point is there a heat treatment step to kill harmful foodborne germs.
Several foodborne illness outbreaks have been linked to raw flour or products that contain it. We have seen Salmonella outbreaks and E. coli outbreaks linked to cake mixes, cookie dough, and others.
With these risky ingredients, a necessary heat step is required to kill harmful germs. A chocolate chip cookie should make you happy. Not sick.
So, what is the magic number?
According to thermoworks, chocolate chip cookies must reach an internal temperature of 180° F.
Will a car reach a hot enough temperature to safely cook dashboard cookies?
Let’s find out!
Now for the big question. Does a car get hot enough to safely cook dashboard cookies. I feel confident a car can make a cookie transform from a soft dough to a soft “cookie.” But just because it smells done. Or even looks done. That doesn’t mean it is safe.
So, let’s start with, how hot can a car dashboard get?
An experiment accounting for a 100° F day with a car parked in full sun reached 157° F after an hour. In the shade (which can happen if clouds move overhead), this temperature drops to 118° F.
Certainly hotter than I would want to be sitting inside the car. Not to mention dangerous for children left inside.
But what about cookies?
If the internal temperature of a cookie must reach the necessary 180° F, and under reasonable conditions a car dash could reach 157° F, I am going to say no.
Given enough time, the cookie dough may spread out, the car further heat up, and enough radiant heat achieve that safe 180° F. But what would the texture of the cookie be at that point. Even so, I am not convinced that it is safe if it has been sitting in the danger zone for more than an hour.
But where there is a will, there is a way.
If you insist on using your car as an oven to make dashboard cookies, there are a few tweaks that you can make to your recipe that will improve your outcome.
There are certain brands of eggs on the market that pre-pasteurize eggs to render them safe. These are key ingredients in dishes that require undercooked eggs. They are often more expensive and come unshelled. But if measured appropriately, you can achieve positive results with this safer alternative to traditional shell eggs.
To solve the flour problem, you can make heat-treated flour to use in this recipe.
For this step, you will need to preheat your oven to 350° F. Spread up to 2 cups of flour onto a baking sheet. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes for 350° F. Stir with whisk or fork. Allow to cool and either store in an air-tight container or use in your recipe.
If you’d like to know more about food safety topics in the news, like “Unsafe Viral Food Trends: Dashboard Cookies,” check out the Make Food Safe Blog. We regularly update trending topics, foodborne infections in the news, recalls, and more! Stay tuned for quality information to help keep your family safe, while The Lange Law Firm, PLLC strives to Make Food Safe!
By: Heather Van Tassell (contributing writer, non-lawyer)