It's not just salmonella from the egg, it's also e coli from the raw flour.
If you want to make yourself cookie dough, remember to bake loose flour for a bit first to kill any microbes in that, too.
And use unsweetened applesauce instead of eggs! If you get the cheap, bland stuff there's no difference in flavor, and no risk from uncooked eggs!
though home methods of making the raw flour edible is often inconsistent in terms of how safe it makes the flour, the best practice is to buy cookie dough made to be edible raw, rather than rely on your half-baked attempt at making raw flour edible 😅 (source)
While some recipes suggest DIY methods to “heat-treat” flour at home, such as baking it in the oven or microwaving it, these methods are inconsistent and may not effectively eliminate all pathogens, including Salmonella, which is particularly heat-resistant in low-moisture foods like flour.
To pasteurize wheat flour (e.g., in 5-lb bags) with different moisture contents (e.g., 11.6 percent and 14.5 percent) using an RF heating process (volumetric heating), the holding time required at a specific target temperature can be predicted by measuring or calculating the high-temperature water activities of the flour samples, and then determining their corresponding D-values for Salmonella. In this case, calculations indicate that the water activities at room temperature for the two batches of flour are 0.43 and 0.64, which would increase to 0.69 and 0.82, respectively, at 80°C. According to the equation shown in Figure 4, the D80 values of Salmonella at these water activity levels are 3.2 and 1.2 minutes, respectively. To achieve a 5-log reduction, the two flour batches must be held at 80 °C for 16 and 6 minutes, respectively.
I think the issue here is not that you can't pasteurize flour yourself, but that many DIY tutorials are dangerous and they should be regulated.
Also it takes a very long time to heat raw flour and it hardly seems worth the effort. Just make oat flour from rolled oats. You're eating the dough raw, so what do you need egg or gluten for in the first place?
Protip: do NOT use convection when baking loose flour . If you're going to eat it raw you don't need to use eggs at all (you shouldn't, they don't add any flavour you want here, and are only added to cookies for their protein which helps it set when cooked).
You can make your own edible cooking dough. You just have to pasteurize the eggs and flour. If I'm not mistaken, I think the flour is more dangerous than the eggs.
There are even shops which sell edible cookie dough pre-made if you'd prefer the convenience.
Wait what
What's going on with the flour? Fungus?
Raw flour may be contaminated with harmful bacteria such as E. coli.
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/general-food-safety-tips/safe-handling-flour.html
You're not going to like this, but the answer is rat poop. Before it's packaged it's often stored in large open piles in warehouses.
Eggs are hermetically sealed. As long as they aren't covered in bird shit when you handle them, pasteurization is not needed.
I would at least rinse off the egg shell before cracking, personally, and when I make raw cookie dough to serve to others, I make sure I follow all food handling best practices since I'd be horrified to give someone food poisoning, as unlikely as it may be.
There's also this:
While most bacteria including Salmonella are found on the shell itself, Salmonella can sometimes get inside an egg or it can already be inside an egg when it is laid.
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/meat-poultry-fish-seafood-safety/eggs.html
*unless you are American and your retail eggs must be washed legally, thereby having their protective coating removed.
They come out of the chicken with a coating that protects it, but the shell itself is not good enough. If the egg has been washed (which, if you're in the US and not raising the chickens yourself, they have been) then it's not totally safe. It's really stupid that we do this, but we do.
Just skip the eggs entirely for a longer shelf life and more delicious, nutritious butter in your health food.
But it’s more work to make edible cookie dough than cookies, and edible cookie dough has a shorter shelf life, so I personally don’t understand the appeal.
It tastes better to me. 🙃
Leave out the eggs and bake the flour at 350f/177-177C for a few minutes first.
This is true, but also I will always lick the spoon when making coookies.
Me too! And the bowl, and the whisk, and ...
I don't know how people make cakes and cookies witbout eating it raw. It seems to be an american thing. Am I the only Australian eating cake batter and cookie dough?
As a kid I often got to lick the Mixmaster beaters when Mum was making biscuits or a cake.
I have never known anyone to get sick but my possibly not-quite-accurate understanding suggests this may be more of a North American thing because we blast our eggs with chemicals that weaken the shell. While the idea is to kill the salmonella, it also can allow it to permeate the shell and infect the egg, making the chance of getting sick from poorly handled uncooked eggs higher if they have not been kept refrigerated.
If you're making it from scratch (with vaccinated chicken's eggs) and eating it right away, the risk of contamination is very low. It's industrial mixes and old (or poorly handled) mix that are a problem.
Haha no you're not the only one, I don't do it after I became a chef and had sanitary practices drilled into my brainhole but whenever I'm cooking with someone in the kitchen they go nuts that they get to have all the batter to themselves.
It's generally pretty safe, especially in Australia. You are still at risk for E Coli from eating the uncooked flour though.
I've still eaten things that AFAIK should've hospitalized me and I've been fine, the risks associated with food have come down a lot in recent years but there is still always a risk.
Cooking times, temps, danger zones etc just guarantee that the food is okay to be consumed but you can usually push the envelope if your adventurous and have no harm done.
Do stay away from old pastas and rices that haven't kept properly, that shit will kill you.
https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/flour-raw-food-and-other-safety-facts
https://www.cdc.gov/food-safety/foods/no-raw-dough.html
Yes, people have gotten sick from Salmonella and E. coli from eating raw flour.
In a flour recall that happened in March 2023, 14 people got sick with 3 hospitalizations.
Here were some others:
- 2021, cake mix recall that led to 16 sick and 7 hospitalized
- 2019, flour recall that led to 21 sick and 3 hospitalizations
- 2016, flour recall that led to 63 sick and 17 hospitalizations
Flour is one of the top ten foods that cause illnesses (source).
Yeah I did once, like when I was 8. I don't recommend it, vomitting and shitting sucks a lot.
From raw vegan cookie dough? No :)
#govegan
Sounds like a USA problem.
Come to Germany, here you can even eat raw pork! It's called Met and it's delicous.
The Bundesinstitut für Risikoforschung (BfR) recommends to not eat raw dough, not because of salmonella but E. Coli and EHEC. Check out this publication: https://www.bfr.bund.de/cm/429/010_stec_ehec-infektionen_durch_rohen_teig.pdf
mett, met is honey wine :D
UHHH
A few years back, there was a major salmonella outbreak from eating raw cookie dough. Several people died, but most recovered, although i recall one woman who had lots of complications, and will never be right again.
Don't eat raw commetcial cookie dough, unless you made it yourself.
Making it yourself is no guarantee it will be safe, unless you know exactly what you’re doing.
The last guy who asked the same thing got told to go ahead and try. He hasn't been heard from since. Some say he's just not finished trying the infinite variety of cookie dough.
What's even better is raw Brownie batter. That shit is fudgy chocolatey goodness that cannot be contained. I use that instead of chocolate syrup over vanilla ice cream and just... you'll never believe how amazing it is. you can warm the batter up in the microwave (without it baking into a brownie) and drizzle it on with a fork. Just do it already
Cook the dry ingredients at 350f/176-177C for a few minutes first and do not add eggs if you are doing this to reduce risks.
Raw eggs are no problem I've seen Rocky
the risk mostly comes from the flour
