Dave Sacerdote wrote: [lots of snips] > To get around the taste of raw flour, you can just brown it a bit in a > skillet first, cooking it to get rid of the "raw flour" flavor. Here's a little secret. Hours, days, weeks or months in advance: Melt 1/2 lb butter in a skillet on low to medium heat. Slowly stir in not quite as much flower. Very *lightly* brown the flower. (Just enough to kill the raw taste, the more the browning the less the thickening power.) Let cool, round in to radish-size balls. Then frig or freeze. When you need to thicken, just drop one of your little balls in. (The butter will melt, the flower will disperse, and dissolve without clumps; and the raw taste was already gone.) Andy.