Cookies on the Grill

My son absolutely loves cookies. He talks about cookies all the time. Cookies are the “special treats” he receives for eating a good dinner, getting through potty training, etc… What makes this even more endearing is that my husband is also obsessed with cookies. If I come home with store bought cookies, I hide them, then bring them out for us to enjoy and then slyly place them back in my secret spot. If these protective steps are not taken, my husband will eat the whole container of cookies without thinking twice. Can taste buds be inherited? Seeing my family, I’m a believer.

Endless Christmas cookies and other goodies.

Not only does my son love to eat cookies, but he loves to make them with me. In fact, sometimes it seems he enjoys making them more than the finished result. Either that or he doesn’t care for the recipe I’ve chosen 🙂 It’s our special time together and I am always up for his help. In fact, I’m usually the one suggesting we get the mixer and cookie cutters out. I hope he’ll still love this when he’s older and impress everyone with his baking skills.

My first attempt at decorating sugar cookies

Since our oven isn’t hooked up, my family has been missing these homemade cookies. Store bought is great every once in a while. I can’t make an Oreo! But nothing compares to mom’s cookies. So I began to read some tips online on how to bake on your grill. After all, it’s basically a big oven. I even had to finish my turkey and sweet potato casserole on it one year because my old oven decided that 3:00 PM Thanksgiving Day was the day to stop working. When this happened, it was VERY stressful, but everything turned out fine. Just a little dry. We got my oven fixed and it decided yet again to stop working the moment I was about to put muffins inside. So I tried out the grill idea again. The thermometer read 350 degrees and I placed the muffin tray on an elevated surface. Came back to check and the muffins were burnt on the outside and raw on the inside (is that even possible?). A strange combination. I decided next to use the remaining muffin batter in my waffle iron and that is a whole other story….it didn’t work…I didn’t get any muffins that day….

I had given up on using my grill to bake until I came across an article last week from Weber Grill explaining the techniques of using a grill to bake. In fact, they have their own blog about baking with recipe ideas. These were the most important takeaways:

Preheat your grill the same amount of time you would an oven
Always use indirect heat. If using a gas grill, keep the center knob off for best results.
Elevate your baking surface. Do not place your baking pan/sheet directly on top of the grill. Elevate with another grill safe pan.

Armed with this advice, I went to work. Well, sort of. I bought pre-made cookie dough to sacrifice until I mastered the process. I had no idea it would actually be a process. First I tried Immaculate Double Chocolate cookies because they are delicious. Here is some helpful advice. Do not use a chocolate dough when first figuring out temperature and baking time. I could not tell at all whether they were getting browned or still raw until they smelt burnt and turned into hockey pucks when cooled. My mistake, lesson learned, lets move on and save that dough for when my oven is back on.

Wow did I overcook these!

I gave up for the day and grabbed the classic Tollhouse break and bake cookies the next day at the store. I had 3 more unsuccessful attempts. The cookies were raw one minute and then overcooked the next. What was I doing wrong?

Still overcooked, but raw in the middle

FINALLY, attempt #5 was a true success. Here are my personal takeaways:

Although I thought my grill was low enough (the Weber blog said medium), low flame worked the best on my grill.
I used my cast iron pan to elevate the baking tray
Weber says not open your grill too often. That makes sense, so I checked the cookies after 10 minutes to see how they were doing. Looked good, but still raw so I checked them in another 3 minutes (baking time said 12-13 min). The color wasn’t quite right, so I let them bake for 3 min more (total of 16 min) and they turned out amazing! A slight crunch on the outside and soft in the middle.