Hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk?

Maybe.

But one Toronto Police officer preferred to use the soaring temperatures to bake cookies in his car.

Given the recent cases of young children being left to endure extreme heat in vehicles, Det. Jeff Bangild came up with an experiment to show just how hot it can get in the inside of a car.

Bangild decided to bake a dozen Pillsbury cookies in his car, parked at the Appleby GO Station just outside of Burlington, starting at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday.

He said the idea for the experiment was sparked by a tweet he sent out Tuesday night: “I’m thinking I should have left a baking sheet of cookie dough in the car. Would have made my afternoon commute much more enjoyable.”

“Given everything that’s gone on with children dying in cars after being left, I figured it would be a good experiment to actually try to cook cookies,” he said.

Bangild came back to the Appleby GO parking lot around 12:45 p.m. to check up on the cookies.

He moved the tray from the back seat to his front dashboard to speed the process along.

The cookies were almost fully cooked about 30 minutes after he moved the tray.

“The temperatures are up above (43C) with the humidex,” he stressed. “When I came back to check up on them, the temperature in my car exceeded what my gauge could actually read.”

Bangild said he hopes people understand the message that he’s trying to send.

“The message behind it is we’re trying to save the lives of our loved ones,” he added. “If I’m willing to put cookie dough in here to cook, that’s certainly not a viable solution for our children or pets.”

Two-year-old Maximus Huyskens, of Milton, and three-year-old Tsitsi Chitekedza, of Edmonton, both died in recent weeks after they were left in hot vehicles.