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Baking 101: Must We Sift This Flour?

September 25, 2013 by Joy the Baker 104 Comments

blackberry lavender scones

Question: Do we really need to sift the flour?
Answer:  Nah… it’s cool, why bother?

 

We’re done here, right?  Almost…

chocolate filled vanilla sugar doughnuts

You’ve seen the recipes… they read something like ‘sift together flour, baking soda and salt’, or they say something like ‘3 cups sifted flour’.

If you’re anything like me, you read those recipes more like ‘take out that sifter that you sometimes use as a pasta strainer, dirty it up with flour, make more of a mess than you intended, and then keep baking.’  Not ideal.  I know.

Do we rreeeaalllyyy  have to sift the flour when baking?  No, and yes.

Sifting is meant to aerate flour before it is incorporated into a dough or batter.  

First things first:  be honest about your flour.  Is your flour sitting in the paper sack you bought it in?  Is it hiding in the back of your cupboard with a discarded bag of brown sugar sitting on top of it?

Just by virtue of being shipped from a place in a bag on a truck means that your flour has been packed and compressed within its confines.  It’s best to transfer flour to a large, airtight storage container when you get it home.  Transfer it to a big ol’ container and give it a big stir with a wooden spoon.  You just aerated the flour!  Boom.  That was easy.

Second things second:  now it’s time to make and bake!  Take the big ol’ flour container out of the cupboard and once again give it a stir with a wooden spoon.  That’s air in the flour.  Use a light hand when spooning flour into the measuring cup (we’ll talk about measuring vs weighing soon!) and swipe the flour with a knife to that the flour is flush with the measuring cup.  Place in a bowl.  Combine the flour with the other dry ingredients. Things like baking powder, baking soda, and salt will likely also go with the flour.

Next:  we ‘sift’… with a whisk!  Whisk together all of the dry ingredients.  Literally.  With a whisk.  Just get in there and go for it!  Whisking is just the aeration we need to create in our flour.  Using a whisk is like killing two birds with one stone.  The flour is aerated and the dry ingredients are combined. Whisking the flour also gives you a chance to really look at your flour, making sure it’s fluffy and debris-free.

But wait!  What if the recipe calls for 3 cups sifted flour?  Well…. plunge that whisk right down into your flour container (because you have a big one now), give it a good whisking and then measure accordingly.  I promise things will work out.

Hold up!  Should I sift powdered sugar?  Yes.  You should.  Powdered sugar is one ingredient that will meet your laziness with lumps.  Rude (the lumps not the laziness.)

Baking 101: How To Read A Recipe

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Brown Butter Banana Bread with rum and toasted coconut

Photos above feature:  Lavender Blackberry Scones, Vanilla Sugar Doughnuts, and Brown Butter Banana Bread with Rum and Coconut.

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Reader Interactions

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Questions
  1. Sandra

    June 29, 2019 at 4:24 pm

    I made banana bread for the first time and didn’t sit or whisk the flour, just stored with fork. It turned out pretty good, but I bet it would have been lighter if I had sifted or whisked the flour first. Thank you for the info!!

    Reply
  2. Dan

    October 3, 2017 at 12:30 pm

    I agree, these recipes were made in perhaps 1890 when they needed to remove bugs,and didn’t have digital scales. I still whisk so it hydrates better.

    Reply
  3. Jeff the Chef

    December 22, 2016 at 11:24 am

    Love this article. Couldn’t agree more. I sift pastries that need to be light, delicate, or might suffer if they were to become to heavy or compact. But I usually whisk most cakes. Love your writing style, btw.

    Reply
  4. janet

    August 9, 2016 at 11:16 pm

    Well, gee whiz……………..just whisk it! What a huge plus. I’d about giving up on baking that called for the mess of sifting! God bless our whisks!

    Reply
  5. Sunshine

    July 5, 2016 at 3:36 pm

    Joy, have you ever read the introduction to Rose Levy Barenbaum’s “The Cake Bible.” There’s a cute little story about how she knew she found her future husband and it had everything to do with sifting flour. I’ve sifted my flour ever since reading it, mostly because I’m sentimental.

    Reply
  6. Andre

    May 1, 2016 at 10:34 am

    My kids 4 and 7 live to sift, but its good to know that there are other options.

    Reply
  7. mrsmichellegoldsmith

    April 28, 2016 at 5:12 pm

    Now that I live in the UK, all the recipes use weight rather than volume. That means that worrying about whether 6 cups sifted is the same as 6 sifted cups is no longer an issue. 500g flour is 500g flour no matter how much air is in it! So now I weigh and whisk — presto!!

    Reply
  8. Milly

    January 5, 2016 at 2:53 pm

    Call me slow u just do not get the whisking technique pls explain step by step

    Reply
  9. cindybus82@comcast.net

    December 20, 2015 at 4:15 pm

    thank all of you!! Whisk it is!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  10. EA Mattson

    December 16, 2015 at 1:47 pm

    And I just hunted all over my kitchen for the flour sifter, that I can’t remember when I last used it.
    But I have a new package of flour after throwing away what I had forever. I don’t bake much, but it is Christmas and I want to make some cookies.

    Reply
« Older Comments

Trackbacks

  1. 10 acessórios para fazer pão caseiro (e outros incríveis, mas nem tão essenciais) - Amo Pão Caseiro says:
    June 21, 2016 at 4:55 am

    […] – Alguns padeiros dizem que não há necessidade de peneirar a farinha, mas é importante arejar um pacote mais empelotado. Também serve para polvilhar farinha sobre a […]

    Reply
  2. Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies | wanna come with? says:
    December 23, 2015 at 1:25 am

    […] (like with powdered sugar or cocoa powder), so I just whisked them together as usual. Check it out, Joy the Baker agrees. And finally, the original recipe specifies that you should use good quality blocks of chocolate, […]

    Reply

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