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
Nancy R. in Kentucky
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?
Lucy
I was wondering the same thing. I have a recipe that calls for 3 cups of cake flour as well.
Nicole
Thank you for explaining why cornstarch makes it work. I love the science lessons in cooking/baking.
Karen
Can you do the 5 sifts in the food processor?
joythebaker
Sure!
Eden
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??
joythebaker
It will equal one cup cake flour.
laurie
can tapioca starch or another starch be used instead? I’ve developed a sensitivity to corn.
joythebaker
Unfortunately I’m not sure how those alternative starches would work. So you will just have to experiment. Good luck!
Cindy
Thank you kindly, most helpful and entertaining presentation!!
805_ladi
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.
Alia
Thanks!! This is great. I love this. I almost wasted a trip to the store.
John Shalack
Perhaps, an easier way is to add 2 T corn starch to measuring cup, fill with AP flour, dump in sifter. Sift 5 times.
Maria Ivy Theresa Sarte
Thank you for your tip i am learning . . .
Rosemarie Fullerton
thank you again so much! you have saved me again. you are so very awesome!