Wow, what an interesting concept! And I like the squeezed shape.

I wonder what no-knead bread would taste like made with roasted flour. Would the crumb taste more like the crust? Would it even work at all? Time to experiment ...

Thanks!

These cookies look very nice, Clotilde, thank you. The roasted flour must smell up the house deliciously, I will try it tonight. I like the idea and homey look that squeezing the dough lends to this recipe as well.

Hi Clotidle- What an interesting use of roasted flour. The only time I have ever used it was in Ecuador when my host grandmother would make little cheese filled tortillas with it- I never even thought to try it out for other things.

It sounds interesting, though I wonder - would a savoury recipe benefit more from roasted flour?

My mom made fresh coffee cake before the realtors came over :)

Wow! I have never heard of roasting flour, but now that you mention it, it makes perfect sense. I can envision so many possibilities -- crust for a savory pie or quiche in particular.

It's true that so many other foods taste better browned and toasted: rice, bread, nuts and seeds, in some cases pastas. Seems logical that if you start with browned flour, then bake with it, the result would enhance the flavor experience. I've made roux and toasted baggettes...I'll have to try browning flour as well.

This is fascinating, Clotilde! Very, very cool. And contrary to that certain someone, I love the look of this "squeeze" version...

xo

These sound fascinating - I love the idea of the roasted flour. Also, I must admit, I love the shape of the cookies. I might have to try squeezing my next batch of shortbread cookies.

Fun idea! The squeeze cookies look very cute.

Very interesting. I will have to try these. FYI, liked your magazine article on butter.

I love this.
Can you believe we've lived until 2008 and never experimented with roasted flour?

You just gave me an irresistible urge to bake and experiment! This idea can really only be referred to as 'WOW'.

Pre-cooking ingredients that shouldn't traditionally be pre-cooked is seeming to become more and more popular. Browned butter, now this...and I must admit cookies made with pre-cooked eggs can taste great! I made my best almond cookies from an almond nougat accident - oh the flavour!:)

And I'm definitely going to try and make these cookies soon!

Cookies look lovely. Must try them soon! In South India where I'm from, we make steamed rice dumplings that are shaped just like your cookies.

The only thing better than baking, is experiment baking! C'est cool!

I've been thinking a lot about molecular gastronomy because this season of Top Chef is practically a showdown between simple California-style cuisine and New York-style molecular gastronomy.

I sit somewhere in the middle. Perhaps I shall bake these cookies and let them decide!

Very interesting idea. Roasting the flour first could definitely increase the flavor but would have different bake characteristics and maybe dry out faster. I wonder how well this would work with a whole wheat flour to increase the "nutty" flavor associated with it. Overbaking seems like more of an issue here.

How dare you be so prolific and young!! I am just jealous because I got nothing done when I was young and you are all over the place with your fabulous life.
AAANyway... I wanted to say that I have made the squeeze cookie with leftover sugar cookie dough because i just got too tired of rolling and had to use the leftovers. I sometimes make them look like turtles. It's all how you position your hands.
No, really, how can you do so much writing, reading, blogging, cooking,and traveling? There must be at least 5 of you. This week I was into scones. I decided on pineapple apricot with sanding sugar. MMMMMMmmm.

For how long and at what temperature did you roast the flour?

Browned flour, done (carefully!) in a skillet on the stovetop, is nice in gravy. It not only thickens it but gives it more color too.

He he, I had tried that squeezing thing when making pâte sablé, just for fun, but I never thought that could work out in such wonderful sablés! I'd bake a plain-flavored first batch, and maybe I'd add some chopped herbs to the second batch. It sound inusual, but it's delicious!

these cookies are yummy! went with the flattened ball shape. my kitchen smells great & the cookies taste wonderful. i may NOT share them with my 2 & 4 year olds--may eat them all myself!

Torrefy is, I believe, the English word for it. Although I will admit I can only recall it being applied to wood.

How interesting. While I make roux for many dishes, it would not have occurred to me to roast the flour in advance for baking. If you keep experimenting I would be interested to know if a pattern emerges in terms of how you have to adjust liquid or baking time in the final recipe to adapt regular recipes to roasted flour.

What exactly is T65 flour? (For those of us not living in France.)

-alain

In the Philippines (and maybe other countries with Spanish influence) there is a wrapped cookie that is made almost just like this called polvoron (also polvorone). Polvoron often have crispy rice or pinipig, or coco powder in them.

I used to pick them up from the sari-sari store, but in the US they can be found at Goldilock's bakery.

"Torrefy" is a perfectly legitimate english verb, meaning "to subject to fire or intense heat; parch, roast, or scorch" etc., and the act itself is "torrefaction". Comes from the latin "torrefacere", "to make (facere) hot (torre)". The root "torre" gave also the adjective "torrid", very hot, which can be said of a summer, or of a love affair...

I cooked a gravy once with browned flour and have to say it was yummy...never thought of using it in pastry. Thanks for the experiment. Will try it at the weekend.

Sounds absolutely wonderful!

Having made my friends' wedding cake last week, I am (very uncharacteristically for me) feeling a bit 'baked out' at the moment, but these cookies sound like the antithesis of said big, complicated project... quite possibly the thing to get me back to baking sooner than planned!

clotilde - torrefaction is used in reference to coffee roasting but not widely. See this example.

Perhaps it is because the English are not so committed to their food as the French so why waste their vocabulary on it (cf. Inuit and snow).

Reading experiments about new culinary techniques is really interesting. Keep up the good work.

I am not a huge fan of cookies, but the chemistry behind the gastronomic arts has always fascinated me, being a science teacher and all. Oh, that I could speak/read French. When we finally start to sell our house, I am definitely going for the baked flour treatment. Thanks for the info.

I LOVE the idea behind this. These sound so wonderful!

The shapes are so cute!

Mabel Allen at Ballymaloe House near Cork in Ireland, shares a recipe for brown bread with toasted flour. VERY YUMMY! I can't wait to try these cookies! Hard cooked egg yolk too????? Wow!

"Basler Mehlsuppe" (soupe à la farine rôtie), a soup traditionnally eaten for breakfast (!) at around six in the morning at the Basel carneval after you've been watching the "cortège" for two hours in the freezing cold is based on roasted flour. It gets its dark brown colour and intense flavour from it. An acquired taste, I have to say but certainly worth a try. There are many variations, like this one for instance.

Thanks for a very interesting experiment and recipe. This reminds me of the process of malting used in brewing beer. To make darker and/or sweeter beers you roast the malted grain (barley/wheat) for different lengths of time. This brings out various flavours including caramel, bready, hazelnut and coffee. To get the sweeter (caramel) flavours you start with wet malt that has more simple sugars while the roasty flavours come from dry roasting malts that have more starch and less simple sugars. These techniques could all be adapted to flour roasting for biscuit making...

Well, this opens whole new horizons of possibility. I believe pie dough made with roasted flour is in order this evening--what better thing to benefit from decreased gluten? Once I finish shoveling that huge pile of dirt into my garden, of course. :)

Thank you for posting the link to their monthly conversation!

if roasting flour does anything like browning butter, I'm totally into it! Can't wait to try.

ooh, it's always so interesting to learn something new like this. these sound delicious, and i love the shape.

I must say I tend to be a bit skeptical of certain foodie "tricks" that seem just silly (and time consuming). But this looks easy enough, and I trust your taste buds, so I think I might try it. I'll prepare to be surprised :-)

you might try roasting half the flour....you will get the flavors and still get the textures too...when i make risotto i pan roast half the rice first....when i make orzo or any pasta using the absorption method i pan roast half of it....the taste is amazing...i find roasting it all is too much...i like the subtlety better.

This sounded like a fantastic idea, so I tried it today, using the shortbread version. I admit I didn't have incredible butter on hand and the baby was napping so I was trapped, but other than that I followed the recipe, and frankly I was underwhelmed.

Could it perhaps be an oven issue? My flour didn't seem as roasty toasty as I would have liked. Is there a point you should reach whether or not the time has elapsed? If I made it again, I think I would either roast it longer or at a higher heat. As is it turned out rather bland, unfortunately.

This is fantastic. In fact I'm trying them tonight. They're in the oven being baked as I type this, and my apartment smells wonderful!

My first thought was 'OMG, she's had an attack of the Heston Blumenthal's'; and my next thought was 'Hmm, I wonder what the implications for coeliacs are - would the gluten be modified sufficiently?'
Worth playing around with. I like Ann Marie's idea for getting the best of both worlds.
Susan

Well, I'm eating them anyway! ;) Worth another try. My oven thermometer says it's accurate, but I've wondered because I have had trouble getting things to brown as I like. Next time I'll roast it a little longer. Thanks!

Interesting concept of roasted flour...I'll have to try this after Passover.

How amazing - amazing really that this is not common place. We roast everything else to bring out the flavour. Cashews. pine nuts. rice. onions. But like you had never heard of flour before.

Great site with captivating writing which get you hooked!

That's a really interesting idea. Flour is something that is obviously so commonplace in cooking and an idea like this is almost revolutionary! I can't believe the way this has opened up a whole new world of possibilities.

Sounds great! I'll try the recipe over the weekend and invite my gourmet french neighbours for a tasting session!

Hi Clothilde, we just threw a party over the weekend and the main cookbooks that I used were yours (5 recipes--lamb/prune meatballs, chicken liver/fig terrine, cheese puffs, cocoa nib cookies, honey almond bites--and muhammara from your website) and Naomi Duguid/Jeffrey Alford's Flatbreads & Flavors--I made Tibetan Barley bread--step #1 involves toasting the barley flour in a skillet to achieve that nutty brown flavor.

Thank you for your recipes and commentary-your writing is so sprightly and nuanced that it's so very hard to believe that Engl is a 2nd language for you!

Clotilde, I feel so inspired me with this post (reading it over a cuppa of masala chai) on roasted flour and nodding my head knowing exactly what you mean by "the baking horizon has suddenly broadened". Trying to imagine the baking aromas filling the kitchen!!

Just wanted to let you know that your post is featured on BlogHer today! ~ AK

I made these on a rainy day this weekend and they were delicious. My husband and I both tasted the flour after it was roasted and could really taste the nuttiness. I tried making little rounds but gave up pretty quickly. He loved the irregular shape of the squeeze! I'm adding this one to my repertoire. Thanks so much.

i made these this past weekend and loved them when they first came out of the oven, so toasty tasting, but i found that after they had cooled the flavor mellowed considerably and they had a weird consistancy. i think it is my own fault as i made them by hand and squeezed them to the point where maybe the center didn't cook properly. i am going to try again with a lighter touch. thanks for the neat and new recipe!

Hi Clotilde-

I've been a fan of your blog for a long time but this is the first time I've posted a comment. As soon as I read your post about roasted flour, I knew I had to try these cookies. I wasn't disappointed! The smell of flour roasting in my kitchen sent me over the moon, and the cookies themselves were phenomenal. They had a flavour all their own, with a wonderful salty kick at the end (I used fleur de sel).

Thanks for the recipe - delish!

P.S. I do agree that they bear more than a slight resemblance to bugs, but I consider that part of their charm. :-)

I have a renaissance recipe dating from 1636 for "fine cakes" which uses pre-baked flour, so the use of it goes back a long way! When I redacted the recipe from 1636 and cooked it, I was very taken with the great texture that pre-baking the flour gave the final biscuits.

Hi Clotilde, I enjoy reading your blog very much and was pleasantly surprised when u wrote about roasting flour. I'm from Asia and where I stay, we have a cookie by the name of Kueh Bangkit which requires roasting flour with pandan leaves. This is not a new technique and is something that grannies have been doing. The Kueh Bangkit is a cookie infused with the fragrance of the pandan leaves and melts in the mouth..I hope you will have a chance to visit Asia and try it one day!

Gofio is the traditional staple of the Canary Islands pre-dating the Spanish colonisation and originating with the indigenous population, the Guanches. The grains, which can be barley, maize or wheat, or a mixture, are torrefied and then ground into flour. In times of famine, wild seeds and cereals would be prepared in the same way. Because the starch is already cooked, it readily combines with hot liquids without immediately becoming lumpy. You will often find an attractive ceramic pot of gofio on the tables of traditional restaurants, for you to add to soup or stew to thicken it. Also served as a nutritious breakfast gruel mixed with honey and hot milk, gofio is increasingly used in desserts, baking and ice-creams, as interest in traditional ingredients grows. In Tenerife, particularly in the North, you can still find Molinos de Gofio; in fact you will smell the flour mill before you see it, with that unmistakeable nutty, warm appetising aroma of roasting flour.

Mmmm. I can't wait to play with this! And I'm wondering how this would work with cornmeal.

I love this idea! I recently attended a presentation by a chef from New Orleans at the French Culinary Institute in NYC. He discussed the bake flour that he has used for decades to add an additional level of depth and character to his roux but said he also uses it just as he would raw flour to thicken sauces at the end of the cooking process. I've used his baked flour trick for my roux and the results are rich and satisfying and I like the idea of expanding its use to baked goods. Thank you for the great suggestion!

I made some of these for a visit to my sister and nephews...they get a big thumbs up from everybody, even eldest nephew, who is quite a tough cookie when it comes to biscuits ('scuse the pun). They are awfully moreish, though!

I just finished roasting the flour, dipped my finger in for a little taste experiment and the first thing that came to mind was POPCORN! It tastes like plain unsalted unbuttered popcorn. No jokes.

Clotilde, I love your site. I'm a teenage foodie living in Australia and I've already wowed my family with so many new Frenchified ideas, on top of the ones I'd brought back from my two-month-long student exchange trip staying near Lyon. Thank you!

Hi Clotilde, just wanted to say I made these tonight (substituted whole wheat flour for 1/2 the plain flour) and they were amazing! My friends and husband agree that they are rich, warm, and comforting without feeling heavy or overwhelming. Thanks!