Cake Flour

Cake Flour is milled from soft (lower protein) white flour. It has a lower gluten content than pastry flour, and a far lower gluten content than bread flour. Cakes need to be light and fluffy and have a very fine texture, thus you don't want a lot of gluten developing in the batter.

In production, the flour has at first a pale beige or yellowish colour. This is then lightened by bleaching it with chlorine.

The chlorine makes the flour slightly acidic, which makes the flour better able to absorb water, and enhances the ability of sugar and fat molecules to stick to the flour. This has the overall effect of "strengthening" the flour, allowing it to support better the weight of the sugar and fat in a cake, resulting in an overall finer, more even texture.

Cake Flour is usually pre-sifted (several times) before packaging, and sometimes, cornstarch is added.

Cake flour is usually sold in smaller quantities than other flour is.

Some people say that using cake flour instead of all-purpose flour tends to keep cookies from spreading on cookie sheets (its lower protein content ties up less moisture making it available for steam production. Steam lifts the batter in the oven producing a fluffy, cake-like batter.) Other people say cake flour is usually too tender for cookies, and advise you to just use all-purpose flour or plain flour unless otherwise instructed. Pastry flour, cake & pastry flour, all-purpose flour (Canada); or per cup of cake flour two tablespoons of corn starch plus 7/8 cup of American all-purpose flour or British plain flour.1 pound (450g) cake flour = 4 1/2 cups

Flour marked as "Cake Flour" was sold in the United States as early as the 1920's.

Self-Rising Cake Flour

All-Purpose Flour, Baker's Flour, Bread Flour, Bromated Flour, Cake Flour, Chapati Flour, Durum Flour, Farina, Farine de Froment, Gluten Flour, Graham Flour, Instant Flour, Matzo Meal, Pastry Flour, Plain Flour, Self-Rising Cake Flour, Self-Rising Flour, Semolina, Sooji, Sprouted Wheat Flour, Stone-Ground Whole Wheat Flour, Whole Durum Flour, Whole Wheat Flour

French Flours, German Flours, Italian Flours, Nut Flours, Potato Flour, Rice Flour, Rye Flour, Sorghum Flour