Egg Frying--Part Three

Okay, I admit it. I'm a little obsessed with trying to fry an egg in the sun. When my previous two attempts  resulted in only a raw egg and a lot of sweat, I thought I was done with this experiment. Really I did. But ideas kept popping into my head for other tries--maybe a solar oven. This idea was sealed when I talked with my sister-in-law about solar ovens. She had several ideas, but what I heard was that your car can be a good oven. Bingo! I didn't have to worry about construction, and I had heard of people cooking things on their dashboard. This was the new thing I had to try.

On the next hot day, I started by putting an iron skillet on my dashboard for a while to heat up. After it was really hot, I cracked an egg into it and closed the car. Then I waited. And waited. But that was okay because my sister-in-law said that solar ovens cook very slowly--even slower than a slow cooker sometimes. When the sun started to go down, I retrieved the egg.  Guess what I found? A raw egg.

If I were really serious about these experiments, I would be carefully studying my techniques and researching the properties of the materials I am using--doing a complete scientific analysis. However, I'm not serious in that way. I'm serious in an impulsive sort of way. Meaning when it's hot outside, it's time to crack an egg and see what happens. This method reminds me of one of the ways they taught my kids how to do math problems. It was call the "guess and check"--meaning you guess at the answer and then plug it back into the problem to see if it is right. I thought that was a crazy method at the time. However, I kind of like that model for my egg experiments.

The solar oven for my experiment.

The egg on the dashboard not cooking

Egg Frying--Part Two

You may remember that a couple weeks ago, we tried to fry an egg on our driveway to test the old saying, "It was so hot, you could fry an egg on the sidewalk." The experiment failed. All that happened was that we got hot, and the egg dried out and attracted ants. According to the internet, we needed to supplement the blacktop and sun with foil and a magnifying glass to be successful. That was the only way we could generate enough heat to reach 158° F, the temperature needed to cook an egg.

Well, I thought we were done with our experimenting until I heard that it was Fry an Egg on the Sidewalk Day. I took that as a sign that we, Theodore and I, had to try again. We were so confident that it would work this time, Theo and I discussed whether or not we were going to try also to fry bacon to go with the egg. Well, no such luck. Even with the magnifying glass, all we got was a raw egg and really hot and sweaty.

I'm done with this experiment and I'm moving onto something else. Really. Unless we get a better magnifying glass, and heat the egg up to room temperature first, and ...

Our Second Attempt at Frying an Egg on the Driveway

It's really HOT!

It's been really hot around here recently. Hot enough that we are breaking all kinds of records. I don't know exactly how hot it's been except the temperatures and heat indexes are always over 100°F. Much over 95°F and it all seems the same to me.

Consequently, I've spent more time indoors than I like. However, yesterday I had a great idea of a fun way to spend time outside.  Ever heard of the expression, It was so hot out that you could fry an egg on the sidewalk? What better time to test this idea than yesterday afternoon when the sun was blazing and the air temperature was high. I rallied Ward and Theodore to help me. They weren't as excited with my idea as I was, but they humored me.

We didn't do much planning for the experiment except decide that we would use the black driveway for maximum heat potential. Theodore cracked an egg onto the driveway and we watched it sit. No sizzle, no turning white, just a broken egg on the driveway. We thought that it may take a little time because it had just come out of the fridge and was cold. So we gave it some time. Fifteen minutes, half hour, an hour. Not much change. Theodore said the driveway wasn't very hot and demonstrated that fact by standing on it with bare feet. I used the more scientific method of using a thermometer to see how hot it was. The temperature maxed out at 116°F. Too hot for feet, I thought, but not hot enough to cook an egg. The egg never cooked, so as they say on MythBusters, this myth is busted.

Once back inside the nice cool house, I did a little research on frying an egg on the sidewalk. Apparently you need the aid of foil and a magnifying glass or mirror to get the temperature high enough (158°F) to do it. I want to try again with the foil and magnifying glass, but I'm on my own. Theodore and Ward enjoy the cool house more than they enjoy watching an egg go splat.

The Egg Cooking Experiment

Theodore cracked the egg onto the driveway.

The temperature maxed out at 116°F. Apparently this was not hot enough to burn Theo's feet or cook the egg.

The egg never cooked. It just dried out.