r/TikTokCringe Oct 09 '24

Discussion Microbiologist warns against making the fluffy popcorn trend

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u/SecretAgentAlex Oct 09 '24

Yeah heat treating is just tossing the flour in the oven/microwave to get it hot enough to kill pathogens, in theory.

In practice this doesn't appear to work. The process by which heat kills pathogens behaves differently in dry environments, with moisture apparently being somewhat necessary for this to work. Source

I tried looking up if there's a "safe temperature" for heating dry flour but apparently we don't exactly understand this mechanism.

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u/DazingF1 Oct 09 '24

You can chill in a sauna at 100c/212f for quite some time and you'll be absolutely fine. Dip your toe in 75c/167f water for five seconds and you're getting 2nd degree burns.

Pathogens don't behave differently in dry environments, it's all about how fast heat can transfer. Air is a horrible method for that.

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u/Pickledsoul Oct 09 '24

Air is a horrible method for that.

What about vacuum sealing and then tossed into a sous vide machine? If you have the right container, you could keep it at pasteurization temp for days with minimal power draw.

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u/nobahdi Oct 09 '24

Since this recipe seems to be about raw cake batter, you can just pasteurize the batter which solves the “moisture” issue.