Let’s talk about cake flour!
You might recognize cake flour as that ever-present box in the back of your parents’ refrigerator. Maybe that’s just me. My mom always had a box of cake flour in the fridge.
Cake flour is a finely ground flour used in many (but not all) cake recipes. Cake flour has a lower protein content of about 8%, as compared to a 10-11% protein content in all-purpose flour. The protein is important! It helps to add structure to our cakes. The lower protein content of cake flour ensures that our cake layers have structure and a soft and light (not tough) texture. Cake flour is especially important in chiffon or Angel Food Cake. Cake flour is our friend, and we should have it in our pantry… but we probably don’t.
You may be fresh out of cake flour when the need for cake arises. I understand this all too well! Luckily, we can easily make a substitute for cake flour using ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen: all-purpose flour and cornstarch. Good news, right?
How To Make Cake Flour:
Measure out 1 cup of all-purpose flour. Remove 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour and place it back in your flour canister. Replace the removed all-purpose flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch.
Sift flour 5 times. Yes… 5 times. Sifting the flour and cornstarch together will help thoroughly combine the mixture and help to lighten and aerate the flour.
By replacing a bit of the all-purpose flour with cornstarch, we’re removing some of the gluten and replacing it with a tenderizing element. But cornstarch is so neutral, how is it a cake tender? Well, cornstarch works alongside other cake ingredients (like sugar, for example) to inhibit gluten development. It’s ingredients like sugar and cornstarch that compete with the flour for liquid absorption (think: eggs and buttermilk) in a recipe. If flour gets to gobble up all of the liquid in a recipe and is worked in a mixer (like we work cake batter), it’s gluten development will be off the charts… and you’ll basically have a baguette. Cornstarch (and sugar) makes the flour share liquid, easing the gluten development and creative beautifully tender cake texture.
King Arthur Flour makes my favorite store-bought cake flour. I love it because it’s an unbleached cake flour (pretty rare because cake flours are usually bleached), has no weird chemicals, and has a slightly higher protein content that helps make consistently great cakes.
If you’re like me and want to read majorly nerdy textbooks about food, Understanding Food: Principles and Preparations is a massive reference book about everything from food service to food science. It’s a splurge. The used book is the way to go.
Happy baking this December!
Past Baking 101 lessons:
Baking 101: How To Read A Recipe
Baking101: Must We Sift This Flour?
Baking 101: Why We Use Unsalted Butter
Baking 101: The Difference Between Baking Soda and Baking Powder
Baking 101: The Difference Between Dutch Processed and Natural Cocoa Powder
53 Responses
If using gluten free flour, is this necessary?
This is very helpful! Thank you! I was curious because the recipe that I am using calls for 3 cups of cake flour. So do I use this formula for every cup, or for just one?
I was wondering the same thing. I have a recipe that calls for 3 cups of cake flour as well.
Thank you for explaining why cornstarch makes it work. I love the science lessons in cooking/baking.
Can you do the 5 sifts in the food processor?
Sure!
So after you sift the all-purpose flour and corn starch, do you remeasure the now called cake flour? Or would the 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons cornstarch equal 1 cup cake flour??
It will equal one cup cake flour.
can tapioca starch or another starch be used instead? I’ve developed a sensitivity to corn.
Unfortunately I’m not sure how those alternative starches would work. So you will just have to experiment. Good luck!
Thank you kindly, most helpful and entertaining presentation!!
Thank you, Joy! Now i have hope that i can make a great angel food cake for me and mt family without having to leave the house.
Thanks!! This is great. I love this. I almost wasted a trip to the store.
Perhaps, an easier way is to add 2 T corn starch to measuring cup, fill with AP flour, dump in sifter. Sift 5 times.
Thank you for your tip i am learning . . .
thank you again so much! you have saved me again. you are so very awesome!
Hi, I am from South Australia and was wondering whether Self Raising flour is the same as cake flour.
Self raising flour consists of cake flour and baking powder combined.
Question: when you sift it, it gets fluffier and that 1 cup ought to measure a little bigger than one cup, so do you measure it back down? I assume so, but I want to be sure.
I am purchasing flour from Italy, cause it is not modified like our
American flour (which the wheat grain was altered in 50’s.
By avoiding the American wheat I can control my blood pressure with out medication.
So I am going to try your -2 tblsp and add 2tblsp of cornstarch. Thank You.
To substitute for cake flour—–can I use unbleached flour????
thanks for explaining this better and for the book reference
Thanks for the great tip, I had no idea you could substitute for cake flour! I also love KAF cake flour but it’s hard to find.
Very interesting, thanks!!
https://justsem.wordpress.com/
my mom always had cake flour too…but not in the fridge.
This is so helpful! Thanks Joy (:
Awesome post! I did know already about the substitute but not entirely the reason why. I loved to understand the chemistry behind it. Thank you Joy!!
This is very handy, particularly since I just realized Stop n Shop, which has been my source for King Arthur cake flour, seems to no longer carry it! I found one last box at Whole Foods the other week…hoping they re-stock! Thank you!
Is giving the flour a whirl in a food processor as good as sifting it 5x?
This is so fantastic, Joy! I use 1/2 regular, 1/2 pastry-cake flower (I buy mine from whole foods) to make any of your scones. They always turn out light, fluffy, and irresistible! Now, if only I could find a way to make some Vegan scones that don’t taste like bricks, my life would be complete!
Instead of sifting 5 times, can I just run the mixer with a wire mix in the stand mixer for a few minutes?
*wire whisk
Invaluable. Next question – when does one use cake flour? I rarely ever see it in recipes (older books usually), but some folks use nothing but.
This is brilliant and another reason why we love and appreciate you! You share your smarts with us… and your tasty, tasty treats.
So brilliantly useful! Thanks!
I used to keep a variety of different flours – cake, bread, whole wheat, etc. but I found that having so many meant that they went bad before I got to use them. So now I use bran to make flour whole wheat and add cornstarch to make it “cake flour”. Thanks for sharing!
We don’t have cake flour in the UK – we just have plain (all-purpose) and self-raising (which, as the name suggests, already has baking powder added to it). And then bread flour (usually called ‘strong’ flour) and wholemeal etc. Interesting to read about the protein content! We don’t really have a tradition of making things like angel food cake or chiffon cake here, so I suppose that’s why cake flour isn’t something we see in our supermarkets.
YES WE DO HAVE CAKE FLOUR I BUY IT ALL THE TIME FRON SAINSBURY’S
Alice what is it called I’ve hunting it down and can’t seem to find it anywhere. Your help would be Much appreciated
Hi Joy!
I’m so happy you posted about this topic. I have a very small in-home baking business and use cake flour often. I’m curious, do you prefer this homemade version of cake flour to the store bought brand, or is it just something you use in a pinch when you run out?
Also, I made a blueberry and pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving using your pie crust recipes and they turned out fantastic! Everyone raved about them so I will definitely be using them again in the future. Thanks!
Tami, a self-taught baker with equally aggressive bangs
Joy! This is awesome- I never knew you could substitute for cake flour. I am totally using this useful trick!
its so great to have all the background info on WHY we need certain ingredients, and what potentital disasters i might face if i make unwise subsitutions, haha. You might enjoy this video from NPR about cookie chemistry. You probably already know all the info in the vid, but its still fun nontheless
https://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/12/03/248347009/cookie-baking-chemistry-how-to-engineer-your-perfect-sweet-treat?utm_content=socialflow&utm_campaign=nprfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook
Oh, what would I do without you? This is particularly useful for us who live outside the US and don’t have access to all your different kinds of flours and other fancy ingredients.
Thank you so much for these Baking 101 posts!
Thanks for this post! I love this Baking 101 series! You should write another book dedicated to that too! :)
Thanks for sharing!
https://sometimesgracefully.com
Just love when the Earth shifts just right–was in the supermarket last night and almost picked up a box, and thought nahhhh I can make my own, and here you are today showing us how lol.
Love these posts!
I absolutely LOVE these Baking 101 posts. Thanks!
Cannot find cake flour for love nor money in London. But we have self-raising flour which apparently isn’t cake flour but is a flour often used in baking cakes. Very peculiar!
You can buy cake flour on amazon here in the UK. The reason we don’t have it here is that cake flour is usually bleached and under EU regulations is against the law. I make a large batch of cake flour as per the formula above and my angel and chiffon cakes are perfect (so my husband tells me …. He became addicted to them when we were last in the US) Angel cakes are great as there’s no fat or egg yolks so the calorie count is friendlier the only problem is the cake is addictive and like eating a cloud!
I have a couple of recipes that add cornflour to all-purpose flour (I’m guessing that’s the same as what we call plain flour in England) and I’ve always wondered why. Now I know!
What’s the difference between cake flour and pastry flour? Thanks!
Pastry flour contains even less gluten (protein) than cake flour.
Great tips, Joy!