DIY Cake Flour

If you want to turn all-purpose flour into cake flour, you’ve come to the right spot! You can do it, easy as 1-2-3!

No Cake Flour? No Problem!

You want to bake a cake from scratch but you’ve got one teensy-tiny problem: you have no cake flour. And, the last time you checked, cake flour was too expensive, anyway.

So, you dump in all-purpose flour, thinking the cake will turn out just fine. But, you end up with a hockey puck instead of a cake. (Been there, done that!)

Then–wonder of wonders–you discover there’s a way to turn ordinary all-purpose flour into cake flour. . .and you’re elated. Why has no one ever told you this before?

Turn All-Purpose Flour into Cake Flour

It’s easy-breezy and you can do it with no trouble at all! All you need are two simple ingredients: all-purpose flour and corn starch.

Different Types of Flour

Before we dive into the process, let’s talk about the difference between the two flours. I covered this in my Become a Better Baker post, but here are the basics:

• All-purpose flour is your basic white flour, the one most often used in cookies and pie crust. It’s made of both soft and hard wheat. All-purpose flour is usually bleached or enriched. The protein levels in all-purpose flour range from nine to twelve percent.
• Cake flour doesn’t have as much protein, which means it doesn’t have the capacity to form gluten as well. (You can see why this would make it perfect for cake-baking, which is what we’re doing here.) Because it’s often bleached, cake flour can absorb more moisture and sweetness, resulting in a moist finished product.

Ingredients for a cup of cake flour:

It’s possible to make your own cake flour using the following ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons corn starch.

Talk about an easy recipe! You’ve got all-purpose flour. You’ve got corn starch. You’re just not sure how to proceed.

It’s as simple as 1-2-3!

How to Make Your Own Cake Flour

1. First, add a cup of flour to a medium mixing bowl. Scoop out 2 tablespoons.
2. Second, add 2 tablespoons of corn starch to replace the flour you eliminated.
3. Third, sift, sift, sift! Four times, specifically. Have two bowls and a sifter handy so you can go back and forth between the two!

How to Measure Your Flour

It’s important not to pack your flour into the measuring cup. Scoop it by the spoonful for a lighter, fluffier cake. One cup of all-purpose flour will make a little more than a cup of cake flour, so set aside the excess and only use one cup of the finished product.

How to Use Cake Flour

You can use this easy cake flour recipe when making homemade cakes, like my Simple White Cake Mix.

You can also use it in recipes like my Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins. It will lighten up the finished product.

I can’t wait to try it in my Easy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. They’re already light and fluffy, so I’m guessing they’ll be cake-like if I use this cake flour.

I enjoyed this post on WikiHow titled 3 Ways to Use Cake Flour. There are multiple recipes listed there. They all look yummy.

That’s it, folks! My simplest recipe yet! You really can make your own DIY Cake Flour!

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About the Author

Janice Thompson is an author, baker, and all-around mischief maker! She has overcome a host of baking catastrophes, including a toppled wedding cake, to learn more about the baking process. Janice has published over 150 books for the Christian market but particularly enjoys writing recipes and baking devotions. To learn more about Janice or to drop her a note, visit her About the Author page.

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