To Cook Flour for Thickening
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Place the flour in a cloth and tie it securely.
Boil and cool
Submerge the cloth in a saucepan of boiling water.
Boil for 6 to 7 hours.
Remove the cloth and let it cool.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Starch that thickens with water and heat, forming a paste that binds and sets as it cools.
The step that matters
Boiling for 6 to 7 hours. Long, steady boiling gelatinises the starch fully, so the paste thickens and sets smoothly. Letting the water drop below a boil would leave the flour undercooked and gluey.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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