What to do with evil white flour?

December 2, 2006 8:50 AM

What can I do with 10 pounds of white flour? Besides making a boatload of cookies, of course. As usual, there's

I recently came upon 10 pounds of white flour. Not just any white flour, but white flour that expired two months ago.

I would feel extremely guilty to use this flour for making snacks and giving them away to unsuspecting people (unless there is no real difference in recently expired flour vs fresh flour??). And the idea of making so many unhealthy treats out of such a nearly nutrition-less food that many people should not be consuming as much of anyway makes me feel like the spawn of Satan.

What would make me feel guiltier more so would be to just throw away perfectly good (expired, but usable!) white flour.

What I'm looking for are creative and useful (er.. no suggestions of making a trap that drops a ten pound bucket of flour onto someone walking into a door) ways to use up this flour without resorting to using it to make food. All suggestions are welcome!

posted by zippity to grab bag (19 comments total)

Flour clay -- recipes here and here. Maybe donate it to a school or a homeless shelter?
posted by katemonster at 9:04 AM on December 2, 2006

Flour expires because the proteins degrade over time, eventually reducing the quality (consistency, mostly, rather than taste) of whatever is made with it. 2 months I would call a minimal violation of the use-by, and would have no qualms of using for gifts.

If cookies make you feel like a bad person, consider making bread instead, especially denser breads.

Or, skip the human route and find a recipe online for dog biscuits. Dogs don't care about consistency, in general, and many have no worries about taste, either.

Otherwise, I'd go the papier-mache route.
posted by whatzit at 9:05 AM on December 2, 2006

Aww, hell. What's that Indian festival with the throwing brightly colored flour at each other?
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:10 AM on December 2, 2006

BTW, seconding whatzit, unless it's got bugs, 2 months is not a major concern with flour. Probably the major problem is moisture content. So you'd want to be careful baking (for consistency and texture), but it's not going to poison anyone. You could just make a test batch first, check them yourself, and if it's yummy, then make cookies for everyone you know and love.
posted by katemonster at 9:22 AM on December 2, 2006

This is a popular time of year for gingerbread houses, and homemade Christmas ornaments.
posted by paulsc at 9:51 AM on December 2, 2006

There are good suggestions in this thread. The scone recipe works great.
posted by dropkick at 9:59 AM on December 2, 2006

Also, is the "expiration" the "use-by" or the "sell-by" date? It makes a difference.
posted by The Deej at 10:07 AM on December 2, 2006

You can make all kinds of sauces with it, which can be preserved.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:09 AM on December 2, 2006

I don't have much personal advice, but I bet the good people on chowhound (www.chowhound.com) would be willing and able to help with ideas and/or whether you should still use it in baking. I've seen many "I have too much XXXX, what should I make?" threads over there that seem to get helpful answers.
posted by wuzandfuzz at 10:09 AM on December 2, 2006

As a toddler my niece used about that much flour and a sifter to cover the stairs, sandbox with toys, and a good chunk of the yard to present us with an unseasonal snowfall.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:14 AM on December 2, 2006

>>What's that Indian festival with the throwing brightly colored flour
Holi.
posted by allelopath at 10:26 AM on December 2, 2006

Massive paper mache paste sculpture, your own Burning Man. Or combine with whole wheat (freshly ground, really) and make a freezer full of rolls that you can thaw out and use for sandwiches.
posted by mecran01 at 12:42 PM on December 2, 2006

10 pounds isn't that much flour. Make a couple loaves of bread every week, and it will be gone in a month. Bake some cookies. Bread a few things that you're planning to fry. Share it with anyone you know who likes to bake. Don't worry about the expiration date.

If you don't think you'll be able to use it quickly, store it in your freezer. That will slow down any continued protein decay.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 1:30 PM on December 2, 2006

If you have room, next time store it in the freezer. If you don't, any cereal product should be frozen for a couple of days to kill any insects that might be in it. Once you form the habit, it's no extra trouble, and then you'll never get those little bugs loose in the cabinets.
posted by unrepentanthippie at 1:54 PM on December 2, 2006

For goodness sake don't make bread with it if it's not bread flour; you will end up with something that falls apart and is similar to bread only in colour and external appearance. For bread you want the highest-protein flour you can find, 'strong' or even the imaginatively named 'bread' flour.
posted by Lebannen at 5:15 PM on December 2, 2006

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I was looking for more non-food related ideas but I appreciate the answers nonetheless. I really liked the dog biscuit suggestion (thanks whatzit!)... I don't like to make (human) cookies and such because it pains me to offer people unhealthy treats. But that is a topic for a different ask.mefi question in the future.

Also I found another creative way to use up some of the flour, which is by using it as WHEATPASTE (mix equal parts water and white flour)!

If anyone can think of other things post away!
posted by zippity at 6:07 PM on December 2, 2006

You can blow things up. IIRC mills used to explode occasionally because flour/air suspensions are a wee bit explosive.

The only other thing that occurs is salt dough Chistmas ornaments, what with the time of year and all.
posted by BishopsLoveScifi at 7:00 PM on December 2, 2006

For goodness sake don't make bread with it if it's not bread flour; you will end up with something that falls apart and is similar to bread only in colour and external appearance. For bread you want the highest-protein flour you can find, 'strong' or even the imaginatively named 'bread' flour.

As someone who bakes bread regularly out of ordinary flour, I have to disagree with this statement. Bread's not magic. Flour, water, yeast. That's all you need. A little salt for flavor, maybe some herbs or other grains, sure, but ordinary white flour is a fine base for plenty of very good breads.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 11:15 PM on December 2, 2006

For goodness sake don't make bread with it if it's not bread flour; you will end up with something that falls apart and is similar to bread only in colour and external appearance.

You can bake decent bread with "all-purpose" flour. It's not ideal for bread, but it's usable. It would be difficult to use the low-gluten cake and pastry flours.
posted by D.C. at 11:30 PM on December 2, 2006