Can You Bake Cookies In A Toaster Oven?

Last updated on September 7th, 2022 at 05:07 am

In a dorm room about 10 years ago, I used my toaster oven all the time! I was having issues with certain foods and discovered it was easier to cook my own food than it was to eat at the dining hall on campus. Because of this, I would cook and bake just about every day. 

Even though it was more work for me, I wanted to eat, so I would cook. 

One day, I decided to see if I could bake cookies! I was teaching a children’s class on the weekends, and wanted to have a special treat for those kids I would see. So I decided to try my mom’s famous chocolate chip cookies. It was simple enough to get the ingredients together, and then used an old ice cream container to mix everything in. It would also double as a cookie container when finished. 

Once I had everything mixed together, then came the challenge of baking all the cookies in a toaster oven. Having everything ready, I had a tray that fit into the toaster oven and could hold 6 cookies on it. At this point, it was an experiment for me to see if a toaster oven could act like a regular oven for baking; however, I figured if I could cook a chicken dinner for myself, I could probably also use a toaster oven for baking. 

Thankfully, it was an experiment that had great success for me. Yes, I could use a toaster oven for baking cookies.

You can bake cookies in a toaster oven however you can only bake them in smaller quantities. You will also need to make sure to turn them at least once while cooking as they can burn since they are closer to the heating element. 

This was a big experiment for me, but with all experiments, there are things you can learn once it’s finished. First of all, I realized that even though I could use a toaster oven as a regular oven for baking cookies, it was going to take soooo much longer! I could only fit 6 cookies on a tray at one time, so what would normally take me about a half hour to bake the complete batch, took me about 2 hours.

I also realized I would have to watch my timing. A toaster oven is smaller, and therefore could cook things a bit faster. This was especially true with cookies. So what was normally 11 minutes for each batch to come to perfect gooey completion now came to 9 1/2 minutes instead. 

I had to figure my personal toaster oven out in my own time. Each toaster oven seems to have its own personality even though it will generally keep to the correct time length of a recipe within a few minutes of what it says. 

Thankfully, it was pretty simple to figure out what my personal toaster oven required. 

Having a toaster oven was a big help to me. Not having a regular oven on hand was a big disappointment, however, my toaster oven filled in great. I baked so many cookies and muffins in my dorm room throughout my college years. As long as I followed the recipe and watched my toaster oven during the time I had set, I always had a good experience with my toaster oven. 

Thankfully, I now have a regular oven, but I know it is something I highly recommend for any college student who’s living in the dorms or doesn’t want to heat up their whole house with the normal oven. It saved me so much money and I was able to eat what I otherwise couldn’t eat. 

Being able to bake for those occasions that I otherwise would not have been able to made the experience that much sweeter.

What Can You Not Cook In A Toaster Oven?

If you have read anything by me in the past, you will know that I’m a big advocate for a toaster oven! Owning a toaster oven saved my college years so I was able to survive the experience. As much as I loved my college experience, I’m glad that section of my  life is over. 

Cooking in my own kitchen is definitely a better quality of life! However, often a question I get asked is if there was anything I learned I couldn’t cook in a toaster oven? And let me tell you, I definitely figured out a few things that you can’t cook in a toaster oven! 

So how about you learn from my experience and not put certain things in a toaster oven!

1) If you have a pyrex glass container with a lid, do not put the lid on while baking with the container! I’m lucky I didn’t kill myself or seriously poison anyone with the food that was cooked that time. In my limited opinion, the melted cover just needed to be scraped off of the top and then eat the food underneath…. (please don’t do this!)

I really don’t think the extra flavor of the cover was worth the food that time! Eating plastic was definitely not my smartest idea!

2) Parchment paper is not designed to work in a toaster oven. It may work in a regular oven, but with the smaller oven and its heat source being so close to the food and what’s being cooked, it is recommended not to use parchment paper when using a toaster oven.

3) Styrofoam is never to be used in a toaster oven! Actually it shouldn’t be used even in a regular oven. It is highly flammable and being put so close to a heat source could start a fire. 

I really don’t think the fire department in your area will think it’s a good experiment to do.

4) Coffee mugs or coffee cups shouldn’t be used inside a toaster oven. The glassware that’s used for a coffee mug or coffee cup isn’t meant to be used in the higher heat of a toaster oven. I’ve watched coffee cups completely shatter because the heat is too much to be used on a coffee cup or mug. 

The heat is too strong in a toaster oven to heat up your morning coffee, and you really won’t appreciate it to start your day with an emergency that you may need to call the fire department for help.

5) Plastic does not go inside a toaster oven! I promise you, it will melt. If the plastic has food in it, then that may have poisoning inside it if you tried to warm it up inside the toaster oven. You will have to throw the entire thing away to make sure you keep your health good.

6) Aluminum foil is another thing that should not be put inside a toaster oven. The heat source is too close and too strong to be able to safely use foil while cooking in a toaster oven. Your food will taste just fine without using foil in a toaster oven so just skip the foil. 

7) Glass bakeware is not recommended either for a toaster oven. The heat source is again too close to the glass, and it has the potential to shatter in the heat. It’s not a guarantee, but if you do decide to use glassware, then you need to be watching it the whole time and not leave the room. 

Since it does have the potential to break though, only use the pans that the toaster oven has specifically said is safe to use.

By knowing that there are certain things that don’t belong in a toaster oven, that

should help you when deciding what is good to be used for your baking and cooking needs. Thankfully your toaster oven should come with instructions that will specify what can be used inside your toaster oven. 

It is there for that specific reason and can help you with your needs. Hopefully you will learn from my mistakes and decide not to do what I did when cooking with my toaster oven.