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Part 12 of my Baking Basics series: Don’t have cake flour? You will soon! All you need are all purpose flour, cornstarch, and a few minutes to make your own.

A measuring cup full of a mound of cake flour

If you’ve ever encountered a recipe that called for cake flour and you’ve panicked because you didn’t have any, stress no more!

We covered the different types of flour and how to use them in this post, but this post is specifically about cake flour with step by step photos and instructions for making your own. You only need two ingredients and a couple minutes.

What is cake flour?

Cake flour has the lowest protein content of all the flours, which lends itself to softer and more delicate baked goods.

It’s very fine, and is generally put through a bleaching process that weakens the gluten proteins – this means it absorbs more liquid and sugar than all-purpose flour, which means you get a more moist cake with a higher rise.

So, long story short: cake flour is soft, which means your baked good will be soft, too.

A measuring cup full of a mound of all purpose flour

A measuring cup full of all purpose flour and leveled off

How to make your own cake flour

It really is quite simple – you just have to make sure you’re properly measuring your ingredients for the best results and the right ratio of flour to cornstarch.

Measure out 1 cup all purpose flour and place it in a medium bowl. Now remove 2 tablespoons of the flour – just drop it back into your container of all purpose flour.
Next, measure out 2 tablespoons cornstarch and add it to the bowl of flour.
Use a mesh sieve (aff link) to sift the mixture into a separate bowl, and then repeat this process one more time. You want the mixture to be fine.

A tablespoon of flour being poured into a plastic container — All purpose flour being removed

A tablespoon of cornstarch being scooped from a yellow container — All purpose flour being removed

How to use cake flour

It works best in cakes, especially one like angel food cake since it’s such a light, fluffy and delicate type of cake. It’s also great for sponge cakes, biscuits, muffins and scones.

Because it is softer and finer than all purpose flour, it can’t necessarily be substituted 1:1 for all purpose flour. If your recipe includes a good amount of wet ingredients like banana bread, hummingbird cupcakes or triple chocolate banana bread, you’ll want to stick with all purpose flour.

As for storing your freshly made cake flour, be sure to store it in an airtight container – I use these and love them.

If you’re using the mixture you just made for a recipe immediately, measure out the amount needed as you’ve incorporated more air and it will be more than 1 cup at this point. Just look at the photo below to see what I mean:

Side shot of a measuring cup of flour showing it mounded over the top

I hope this helps! Are there any questions about making your own cake flour that I didn’t answer? Let me know in the comments below!