Question: Do we really need to sift the flour?
Answer: Nah… it’s cool, why bother?
We’re done here, right? Almost…
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
Baking 101: Why We Use Unsalted Butter
Photos above feature: Lavender Blackberry Scones, Vanilla Sugar Doughnuts, and Brown Butter Banana Bread with Rum and Coconut.
mira maulidina
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Becca
Hello!
I’m a longtime reader who just popped in to say how happy this makes me- you just justified years of my laziness. Ironically, a week after I read this I ended up finding another reason to sift when I went to make fried green tomatoes. Sigh.
-Becca
Julio
How the heck did you know my bag of brown sugar was sitting on top of my bag of flour?!?!
Seriously, that’s where it is!
Love your site and especially this series.
Catherine Cuisine
Did you know that only in North America we have to worry about sifting / adding air to the flour before measuring it? Packed vs. aerated flour doesn’t weigh the same thing. The measuring cups system is not precise at all compared to the metric system and weighing the ingredients. 400 grams of flour, packed or sifted, is always 400 grams of flour. As a French Canadian, I’ve always baked and cooked using cups and spoons, but I recently converted to the scale, and I love the precision it offers. Of course, I am still using the cups when the recipe is asking for them. I am comfortable with both systems, but I prefer the metric /weighing the ingredients…
Val in MN
LOL!! I bought a sifter. Used it once. Got disgusted with the cleanup!!! Tossed it into the storage box. Bought a mesh strainer. Use it for all my “sifting”. After reading this. I will WHISK my flour, and use mesh strainer for powdered sugar!! Awesome!!
Marcella @ broadappetite.com
I baked cookies last night and was contemplating this question. I almost never sift when the recipe calls for it. Thanks for explaining that sifting is essentially aerating the flour. I LOVE the whisking idea.
Jackie
I often use the whisk method, but I’ve found that certain occasions call for sifting. For example, cocoa powder tends to have so many clumps. So, I use the sifter anytime I make something with cocoa powder, oat flour, or certain spices like ground ginger.
Betsey
Love the series! Two topics I would love to read about are: softening the butter and why the same cookies turn out differently every time I bake them. Mysteries to me! Thanks!
Arthur in the Garden!
I find sifting the dry ingredients is the quickest way to break up lumps.