How To Make Cake Flour

By zircon50

Ever feel inspired to whip up a home-made cake, only to find yourself out of cake flour? Or maybe it seems a bit excessive to buy an entire bag of cake flour when you're only planning on making one cake. Instead of a special trip to the store, you can cut corners by making a substitute cake flour out of regular, all-purpose flour and corn starch.

Ingredients

• Take one level cup of all-purpose flour, remove two tablespoons, and then add two tablespoons of corn starch back in.
• (1 cup AP flour minus (-) 2 Tablespoons AP flour plus (+) 2 Tablespoons corn starch = 1 cup cake flour).
• Be sure to sift the flour to distribute the corn starch well before using it in your cake batter.

Preparation

Step 1

How does this work?

The primary difference between cake flour and all-purpose (AP) flour is the protein content (which becomes gluten). The protein content of cake flour is about 8%, while the protein content of AP flour is about 10-11%. When you're making cakes, you need a little gluten for structure but not so much that it gets tough and chewy, so you use a flour that's lower in protein. When added to AP flour, cornstarch will inhibit the formation of gluten while also giving structure and 'sponginess' to your cake.