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homemade cake flour substitute in glass bowl

Homemade Cake Flour Substitute

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 4.8 from 45 reviews
  • Author: Sally
  • Prep Time: 2 minutes
  • Cook Time: 0 minutes
  • Total Time: 2 minutes
  • Yield: 1 cup
  • Category: Baking
  • Method: Mixing
  • Cuisine: American

Description

You only need two common ingredients—all-purpose flour and cornstarch—to make a homemade cake flour substitute. Sifting them together is key. Delicate baked goods meant to have an extraordinary light texture like angel food cake and white cake should ideally use real cake flour. If you’re in a pinch and don’t have cake flour for other recipes, use this substitute.


Ingredients

  • 14 Tablespoons (110g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)*
  • 2 Tablespoons (16g) cornstarch

Instructions

  1. Sift flour and cornstarch together in a large bowl. Repeat so the mixture is sifted twice. Sifting not only mixes the two ingredients together appropriately, it aerates the mixture so the consistency is similar to real cake flour.
  2. Measure (spoon & level) 1 cup from this mixture. You’ll have about 1 cup anyway, but sometimes sifting can produce more volume since it’s adding air.
  3. Now you have 1 cup of cake flour that you can use in any recipes requiring cake flour. If the recipe requires more than 1 cup cake flour, you can do this process in bulk, but I find it’s better to make each cup of cake flour separately.

Notes

  1. Special Tools (affiliate link): Sifter/Fine Mesh Sieve
  2. You need 14 Tablespoons (3/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons; 110g) of spoon & leveled all-purpose flour. Sometimes it’s easier to measure 1 cup (16 Tablespoons) then remove 2 Tablespoons than to individually measure 14 Tablespoons. Alternatively, you could measure 3/4 cup flour then add 2 Tablespoons.
  3. Cornstarch is extra fine and lowers the gluten formation in the all-purpose flour, similar to cake flour. In the UK, cornstarch is referred to as corn flour. Make sure you are not using cornmeal. They are completely different ingredients.