The Fresh Loaf

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Differences in flour?

butterflygrooves's picture
butterflygrooves

Differences in flour?

I'm a cake/pie baker and I always use AP flour but I've come across some new recipes that call for Cake Flour.

What's the difference between the two flours?  Is there anything i can substitute for the CF?  Can I make my own CF?

Rosalie's picture
Rosalie

That's what All Purpose flour is.  Jack of all trades, master of none.  Bread flour is better for bread because it has more protein and can develop more gluten.  Cake flour has less protein than AP, and produces tenderer cakes and flours.  You can usually use AP flour in its stead, but be careful not to develop the gluten.

Cake flour is something you buy in the store.  You'll probably find it in a box.  I would make it and pastry flour by milling soft wheat grains, but then I don't use refined flours.

Rosalie

proth5's picture
proth5

and dinosaurs roamed the earth, we used to triple sift AP flour and then put two tablespoons of cornstarch in a cup measure, fill it with the triple sifted flour, and level off the top.

Also see this advice from joyofbaking.com for cake flour:

3/4 cup (105 grams) all purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons (30 grams) cornstarch

It isn't exactly the same as real cake flour, but it gets the job done.

Hope this helps

suave's picture
suave

Check if your local stores carry White Lily flour - it slowly but surely becomes a national brand.  It would make a reasonable substutute for CF.

xaipete's picture
xaipete

You can substitute pastry flour for cake flour. Pastry flour usually has a little more gluten than cake, but less than AP. Pastry flour is often available in the bulk foods section.

--Pamela

vdarmon's picture
vdarmon

A recent series of blogs written by Joe Pastry has been about flour.  

http://joepastry.web.aplus.net/index.php?title=what_s_flour&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

This is what he has to say about Cake Flour:

Cake flour isn't just a very low-protein (gluten) version of all-purpose flour, it's actually made from a completely different species of wheat known as club wheat. The wheat is cracked, sifted and very finely milled to an almost talcum powder-like consistency, making it quite light by volume (about half an ounce less per cup than all-purpose flour).

Of course cake flour is usually quite heavily bleached. That obviously what's responsible for the whiteness of cake flour, though the bleaching also imparts some other very important characteristics. For one, it helps make the starch granules more absorbent (especially in very sugary batters), increasing their ability to form the gels that hold a cake layer up. Bleaching also helps fat molecules adhere more readily to starch granule surfaces, resulting in better fat distribution. The cumulative effect is lightness, sweetness, richness and tenderness...all the attributes one seeks in a good cake.

One side effect of the heavy bleaching that some people notice is a slightly acrid smell or sour taste. The reason for that is a trace amount of hydrochloric acid that the processing leaves behind.

Given what cake flour is made from and how it's treated, a concocted equivalent is by no means ideal. However you can approximate one cup of cake flour in the following way: start with one cup of all purpose flour, subtract two tablespoons, and replace them with corn starch (corn flour).

Hope this helps!

foolishpoolish's picture
foolishpoolish

Not my idea nor have I tried it but apparently this is one way to treat flour to act like cake flour. Sounds cool to me:

http://amerrierworld.wordpress.com/kate-flour/

 

FP