Help! I don’t have any cake flour!

Welcome to the last installation of the Just Eat It: Brain Food 101 Wheat Flour series! In case you missed the first four, they are here:

• Quick v. Yeast Breads
• Whole Wheat v. White Flour
• Baking Experiment: All-Purpose versus Pastry Flour
• Baking With Wheat Flour: It’s All About the Protein

And for a special deal on the Chocomize chocolate I gave away last week, keep reading!

NO CAKE FLOUR? NO PROBLEM!

What do you do when a recipe calls for a particular ingredient, but there is none to be found in your kitchen? Do you simply look for another recipe that doesn’t require that ingredient, or cross your fingers that a simple ingredient substitution will do?

Several readers asked me if they could use all-purpose flour instead of cake flour. So I did a little research for them.

[Source]

Apparently, cake flour is finer, lower in protein, and higher in starch than all-purpose flour. Oftentimes, cake flour is chlorinated to break down the gluten proteins to make the texture even more tender.

To make your own cake flour, simply mix 1/4 c. cornstarch with 1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour. Make sure it is well-mixed. Really, that’s all you need to do! Your resulting mixture will have more starch and less protein than the all-purpose flour you started with.

Remember, cake flour is typically finer than all-purpose, so the final product’s texture may be grainier.

I was going to do an experiment for you and compare baking with this substitution to baking with cake flour, but I couldn’t find cake flour at any stores near me! So, I guess I’ll be using 1/4 c. cornstarch + 1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour whenever I need cake flour, too!

CHOCOMIZE DISCOUNT!

Drooling over the chocolate in my Chocomize giveaway, but didn’t win? Enter “savvyeat” at checkout on Chocomize’s website to get 10% off!

Tagged as: Baking