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Cookie dough is something that can be quite hard to resist. Many people love eating it raw, but that has the potential to be dangerous.

There’s a reason why you’re not supposed to eat raw cookie dough. If you’re eating raw cookie dough that was made using flour that hasn’t been heat-treated, then you could be putting yourself in danger.

It’ll be safe to eat raw cookie dough so long as your flour has been heat-treated, though. Many people have no clue how to go about doing this, but it actually isn’t that tough.

You can heat-treat flour at home without having to jump through many hoops. It’s a pretty straightforward process, but there are a few ways that you can go about doing it.

Read on to learn how to heat-treat flour at home the right way. This will help you to get the best results, and you’ll always be able to do this before you decide to make cookies in the future.

1 – Heat-Treat Flour in the Microwave

The easiest way to heat-treat flour involves using a simple microwave. Just about everyone in North America is going to have access to a microwave these days, and that makes this method incredibly practical.

To start, you’re going to need to use a microwave-safe bowl. Once you have one of those, you’ll be able to move forward.

Get a bag of all-purpose flour and then put however much flour you need for your recipe in the microwave-safe bowl. Some people will choose to heat-treat an entire bag of flour just to ensure that it gets done.

If you do decide to heat-treat just enough for your recipe, then you should still heat-treat a bit more flour than you need. Try to add an extra cup or two of flour just so you won’t wind up with too little.

Put your bowl of flour in the microwave and set the power to high. It should microwave for thirty seconds on this setting before you take it out and stir it up.

You just keep microwaving the bowl of flour in thirty-second intervals this way. Stirring keeps you from burning any of the flour.

You’re going to want to have an instant-read thermometer handy so that you can test to see how things are going. Take the temperature of the flour in several different spots to see where it’s at.

You want the flour to be 165 degrees Fahrenheit everywhere. If it’s at a lower temperature than this in some places, then continue to microwave at thirty-second intervals.

Eventually, you’re going to get the thermometer reading that you’re looking for. This will indicate that you have successfully heat-treated your flour.

It’s so easy to heat-treat flour this way that there’s no reason not to do it. It’ll help to keep you safe and you won’t have to worry so much about sneaking a bite of cookie dough.

2 – You Can Also Heat-Treat Flour in an Oven

It’s also going to be possible to heat-treat flour in an oven. To start, you’re going to want to heat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

Get a baking pan of some sort that has sides so that none of the flour will fall off. Using a cookie sheet is fine so long as it has sides.

You’re going to spread flour on the pan or cookie sheet and then place it in the oven. Keep it in the oven for two minutes and then take it out so that you can stir the flour.

In many ways, this method is going to work the same as the microwave method mentioned above. The stirring is done to prevent the flour from burning and it helps to ensure that the flour is being heated evenly throughout.

You’re supposed to keep putting the flour in the oven to bake for two minutes each time. Eventually, you’ll want to start checking the flour with the instant-read thermometer to see what the temperature is.

Check the temperature in many places and know that you’re good to go when the flour is at 165 degrees Fahrenheit everywhere. Overall, this method is just as simple as using the microwave to heat-treat flour.

It’s possible that some of the flour is going to stick to the pan, though. Don’t be too concerned if this happens because it’s pretty common.

You should probably put way more flour than you need for your recipe on your baking pan. This will ensure that you have enough flour.

Never try to scrape the flour from the pan off and try to use it. Just allow the flour that is stuck on to be lost since it won’t be that pleasant when used to make cookies.

Before you start making cookie dough, it’s important to let the flour cool off. You should wait at least thirty minutes to start making it so that you can get optimal results.

Using this oven heat-treating method might make it easier for you to heat-treat large amounts of flour at once. Most people have bigger ovens than they do microwaves.

Final Thoughts

It’s going to be worthwhile to heat-treat your flour so that you can have a good baking experience. This isn’t something that’s going to take a lot of time to accomplish either.

You can easily heat-treat flour from home by using your microwave. So long as you have a microwave-safe bowl and an instant-read thermometer, it’s going to be easy to get the job done.

It’s just as simple to heat-treat flour in the oven, too. You’re still going to need an instant-read thermometer so that you can determine when the flour is properly heat-treated, but it’s probably going to be easier to heat-treat large amounts of flour in an oven.

If you were at all worried that heat-treating flour would be complex or time-consuming, then you’ll be able to breathe a sigh of relief. It’s not something that takes a lot of time to figure out and you’ll be able to heat-treat flour in a timely fashion.

Tell your friends how easy it is to heat-treat flour so that they know as well. You won’t have to be as nervous about eating cookie dough in the future, and it’s never going to seem like a hassle to heat-treat the flour.

Sarah Bridenstine

Sarah is the founder of Baking Kneads, LLC, a blog sharing guides, tips, and recipes for those learning how to bake. Growing up as the daughter of a baker, she spent much of her childhood learning the basics in a local bakery.