Self Rising Flour Substitute

By Becky Jo

Self rising flour is an ingredient in many recipes like cakes, cookies and pastries. Self rising flour is nothing but flour which is added with leavening agents and salt before its packaging. You might have noticed that recipes that require self rising flour as an ingredient do not include salt or leavening agents. If you add salt and baking soda to this flour, it can spoil the end product. In case of self rising flour, leavening agents (baking powder) and salt are uniformly distributed, so they make the food products more fluffy and light. Usually, self rising flour is sifted before its packaging and this explains its smooth and uniform texture.

Self rising flour is low in protein content as compared to other types of flour, like all purpose flour. Wheat protein or gluten may make the baked products more dense or tough in structure. This explains why self rising flour, mostly used in cakes, are low in protein. The protein content and the amount of leavening agents in self rising flour are usually given on the labels attached to the product.

Ingredients

• In order to prepare self rising flour substitute, you need all purpose flour, baking powder and salt.
• If the recipe needs one cup of self rising flour, you have to take the same amount of all purpose flour with a dry measure.
• Take all purpose flour in a container and mix the other ingredients.
• For every cup of all purpose flour, you have to add 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Preparation

Step 1

The measurements should be perfect and any variations may affect the texture of the end product.

Thoroughly mix the ingredients and your self rising flour substitute is ready. You may also sieve the flour, two to three times, so that the baking powder and salt gets mixed up uniformly. This gives an uniform texture to the baked product.

You can use this self rising flour for preparing bread too. But in such cases, you have to avoid putting salt in this flour.

If you are using this self rising flour substitute, then don't add salt, even if it is given as an ingredient in the recipe.

Another important point regarding self rising flour and this self rising flour substitute is that, once you mix all the ingredients of the food recipe, put it in the oven as soon as possible. This is because of the fact that baking powder gets activated as soon it is exposed to moisture. If this mixture rises before you put it in the oven, it will collapse inside. This ends up with flattened cakes and sagging cookies.