Roux pie

[Tscarborough]

If I use roux flour in my dough (at 20-30%) will it rise?

This is how you make roux, stir it at medium heat until it is as brown as you want it, but if it smokes, throw it away.  Most people add oil first, but I add the oil after it is browned.  For use in dough I would not add oil at all.

[The Dough Doctor]

The reason for making a roux paste/flour is because it does not contribute to a stringy gravy because you have destroyed the gluten forming properties of the flour. Hence, you would not get a very good pizza if you made it in this manner. Please let me know if I misread your question.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[Tscarborough]

Nope you understood and answered it.

[TXCraig1]

Would toasting the flour in the oven also denature the gluten? Or would that be a possible way to get the roux flavor and still have a workable dough?

CL

[scott123]

Tom S, if you went with a dark enough roux, you could probably get a good roux flavor to the crust with as little as 7%.  Combine 7% and a very high gluten 14% flour and the dough should rise just fine. Just make sure you don't add any additional oil or sugar.

Otherwise, and I'm sure this has occurred to you already, but if you add roux to the sauce, the taste will be far more prominent.

And, far be if for me, a Yankee, to tell a Southerner how to make roux, but, if you're going to use oil, you really should add it at the beginning.  Oil is a heat carrier, so when you're browning the roux with oil, the heat travels further/more evenly and browns all the flour granules to the same color.  When you toast dry flour, regardless of how vigorously you move around the flour or how the final roux looks to the naked eye, if you put it under a microscope, you'll see dark and light granules/uneven cooking.  Unevenly browned roux is inferior because the pale granules, besides not adding flavor, will actually mask flavor by adding undextrinized starch to your sauce.

[scott123]

Would toasting the flour in the oven also denature the gluten?

Yes, it would. Any type of browning temperature, with or without oil, will denature the gluten and make it worthless for building structure in bread.

[TXCraig1]

And, far be if for me, a Yankee, to tell a Southerner how to make roux, but, if you're going to use oil, you really should add it at the beginning.  

Yes, and it should be almost smoking hot when you add the flour (IMHO).

CL

[Tscarborough]

Well even in Louisiana they usually do add the oil first, but it is quicker and better to add it at the end, and that is the way my Granny taught me to do it on the Gulf Coast and that is the way I will continue to do it.  Hell, you can buy roux in a jar now, and it isn't bad.

I think I will use the roux for bench flour.  That way I will get the taste and color and it will not affect the dough itself.

[TXCraig1]

I'm not going to tell anyone how to cook, notwithstanding you can't live any closer to the Gulf coast than I do; growing up, I worked in a seafood restaurant for years peeling shrimp, filleting fish, cooking on the line, and yes, cooking roux (black without burning it); I hunted, fished, drank, bs'd, gambled, and cooked with the Cajuns from Anahuac to Houma every week, and I've NEVER seen the oil added at the end.

CL

[Tscarborough]

Maybe it is a Mississippi thing.  I grew up on the coast from Destin to Port A, working charter boats and restaurants.

[The Dough Doctor]

If you brown the flour in the oven, you will still destroy the gluten forming properties of the flour.
There may be an opportunity to get the flavor that you are looking for by using a roux as an added ingredient to the dough, by that I mean adding it at somewhere's between 5 and 20% of the total flour weight. You might need to beef up the protein content of the dough a little through the addition of some vital wheat gluten (available at most supermarkets). In this case we're looking at the roux only as a flavoring material. A good level of added gluten to add, for openers, would be 15% of the weight of flour in the roux that you are adding. You will need to take into account the water and oil content of the roux as well as the hydration requirements of the gluten (for each ounce of gluten that you add, you must add 1.5-ounces of additional water). It might take a little experimenting, to get the absorption just right, but I think it is "doable".
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[Tscarborough]

Well, I used some dry roux as bench flour.  It added a nice color and a subtle taste, but not enough for the effort.  The next time I will use around 20 percent in the dough.

[ringkingpin]

Interesting thread...

FYI, in France, a roux isn't colored at all.  When making a traditional French Roux, it will start to blanchier or whiten up, at that point you know the flour has been cooked and you take it off heat. 

[TXCraig1]

Interesting thread...

FYI, in France, a roux isn't colored at all.  When making a traditional French Roux, it will start to blanchier or whiten up, at that point you know the flour has been cooked and you take it off heat.  

Thank God I don't live in France... 

A perfect black roux is one of cookings greatest challenges and rewards.

CL