Barbecued Cookies

And the Summer Kitchen solution.

It’s a hot prairie summer night. When you live in a non-airconditioned house like we are, you avoid using the oven at all costs.

So why on earth would we choose to make a dinner consisting of homemade pizza and a baked dessert?

Pizza famously requires very high temperatures to heat the stone and crisp up the crust. Cookies conjure a cozy curl-up-next-to-the-fire kind of nibble. You may think we’re in for a sweaty toss and turn night but we have discovered a little trick. We know it’s entirely possible and perfect to bake outside in nothing fancier than a BBQ oven.

The Summer Kitchen

Cooking outside of the house reminds me of a strategy my ancestors used. My great grandparents joined a wave of settlers from Southern Ukraine immigrating to Southern Manitoba in the late 1800s. They moved to Canada to start again, a government agreement in place to “settle” the land but to live autonomously.

The extremes of a prairie climate were no surprise to these folks as their previous home was in a similar environment. The smartest “keep the house cool” strategy they brought with them was to build a Summer Kitchen.

This was a small one-room building erected beside the farmhouse. It had a cookstove and counters with multiple windows to allow for a cross-breeze. (I dearly hope those windows were screened to hold bloodsucking mosquitos at bay.)

Cooking outside the house kept the blazing cookstove fires from heating up the sleeping quarters and from overheating the hardworking women in their long hot dresses. Clever! I even discovered that some homesteads built a ʺShtroo Hietʺ or an outdoor oven to keep the heat even further out of their dwellings.

I submit to you that this is one of the reasons most Canadians own a BBQ. Your outdoor kitchen space is a way to escape either a hot stale home or a frigidly A/C’d domicile!

Tonight we are emulating this strategy with our barbecue. We prepare the thin St. Louis Style crust pizza indoors while the pizza stone heats up on “the Q”.

The barbecue gets so hot it cuts 3–4 minutes off baking time so we slide the pizza on the stone, close the lid and keep a close eye on the clock. Because it’s such a thin-crust pie we only allow approximately 7–8 minutes cooking time.

BBQ-baked pizza is divine!

“Me Want Cookie”

Let’s get to the chocolatey heart of the matter here.

I admit it, my sweet tooth often has me deciding on a dessert before dinner. A serious dessert discussion ensues while my husband and I prepare dinner.

Recently my homemade chocolate chip cookies have been our indulgence but we are torn. With all of our efforts to cook outside, we certainly do not want to heat up the house to bake a couple of cookies. My brilliant husband has an epiphany:

If we can make a pizza oven out of the barbecue, why can’t we also transform it into an oversized Easy-Bake Oven?

Genius! And I don’t even need to expend any energy mixing up a batch. Do you know why?

Sweet Revelations

As a side note, I had my own lightbulb moment this year about cookies and here it is: I have devised a make-ahead style of the good old Oatmeal Chocolate Chip and Walnut cookie.

I mix up a dough generously populated with chocolate chips and walnuts. Then I roll the batter into logs like an icebox cookie. This way I can wrap the sweet doughy cylinders in parchment paper and pop them into a baggy to refrigerate or freeze.

Like our cable channels, they become an On Demand dessert for ultimate freshness and — let’s face it — portion control.

After the BBQ has cooled somewhat from its use as a pizza oven it doesn’t take long to bring it up to temperature for cookie baking.

I slice four chunks of batter from the roll and transfer them to a small parchment-lined cookie sheet. Opening the BBQ lid I discover the pizza stone is still inside — how fortuitous! It will promote even heat throughout the cookie sheet. Like the pizza, the cookies will take less time to bake so I turn the timer to 8 minutes versus the usual 11.

Ding! Time’s up and yes oh yes, here are the cookies in all their sweet glory!

Browned crispy edges with the gooey delight of (lots of) chocolate chips and toasty walnuts inside.

If my grandparents were alive they might have exclaimed “obah nay” (“no way”) at our version of a Summer Kitchen but after a bite or two of thin-crust pizza and old fashioned cookies, I think they would have approved.

The BBQ CC Cookie

1 cup Butter (slightly softened)

1 cup Brown Sugar (packed)

1 tsp Vanilla

1 Egg

1 cup Quick-Cooking Oats

1 cup Unbleached White Flour

1 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 tsp. Salt

1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips + 1/2 cup Walnuts

Using a countertop mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar together.

Add the egg and vanilla and mix them in thoroughly.

Shake in the dry ingredients and allow everything to become incorporated.

Finally, drop in the chocolate chips and walnuts and let the mixer do its thing until the chips and nuts are evenly distributed throughout the batter.

Turn your barbeque to low and allow it to heat up for about 10 minutes to reach approximately 350 deg.C.

Drop poker chip-sized globs of cookie batter onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

Place cookies onto barbecue grill and close lid, letting it cook for about 8 minutes.

When edges are browned remove from the barbecue, allow to cool for 2 minutes.

Consume immediately!