Originally published on August 27, 2014
Walk down the “baking” section of any grocery store and you will quickly become dazed and confused just looking at all the different types of flours that are on the shelves. There’s of course, all-purpose, but there’s also bread flour, cake flour, whole wheat flour, and if you go one step further, chick pea flour, almond flour, quinoa flour, and a host of others. And it seems, the more you cook and bake, the more you need to have at least several different types of flour in your pantry. And if you’re a real stickler about following recipes word for word, you can quickly eat up a large portion of your grocery budget if you buy them all. That’s why today, I’m here to tell you about one flour that has an easy substitute – cake flour.
Cake flour is used for more than just cakes. It’s also used in many tart and pie recipes, and any other recipe that calls for a lighter flour than all-purpose. But if you want to cut back on the plethora of flours in your cupboard, you can, just by using all-purpose with a bit of cornstarch in the mix.
I thought I already had this substitute in the page “Common Kitchen Substitutions” page that’s on the site. But when I went back to check, I was surprised that the only cake flour substitution was “1 cup all-purpose flour minus 2 tablespoons.” That’s true, up to a point. When using all-purpose as a substitute for cake flour, you do need to measure out 1 cup of all-purpose and then remove two tablespoons and put them back in your flour jar. But, you need to replace those 2 tablespoons of flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. I don’t know how this works, but some type of science happens once the heat hits that mixture and it makes the flour mix lighter and fluffier than all-purpose alone would. And it really does work! I used this substitute when I made my Lemon Zucchini Bread, and it was the moistest, lightest dessert bread I’ve ever made.
So there ya go, your new cake flour substitute that will work, and that will give you all the flour you need while buying less of it. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a page on my site that needs fixing…..