Flour is an essential tool in all types of cooking. From making stews and sauces to baking cakes or muffins, flour is important. There are many different types of flours that are available and all of the choices can be…confusing. Understanding the differences are key. Two of the most commonly used forms of flour are all purpose and cake flour. They each have unique properties and uses.
Cake Flour Overview
1. Uses
Cake flour is designed specifically for baking cakes and pastries. However, it’s uses are not just limited to cakes. Any type of moist or “chewy” dough is great with cake flour. It makes things lighter. You can also make a pretty great batter to fry things up.
2. Makeup
Cake flour has a very low protein content when compared to normal flour, this causes less gluten to form and therefore produces a softer cake. It is made with extremely fine milled soft wheat. It is bleached, which changes the structure of starches and fats and makes the flour more acidic. This helps cakes to rise.
3. Make It Yourself
It is also very easy to make your own homemade cake flour with just two common ingredients. You need all purpose flour and cornstarch. You start with a cup of all purpose flour. You then remove two tablespoons of the all purpose flour and replace it with two table spoons of cornstarch. Once you do this you put the mixture into a sifter and sift it through multiple times in order to make it very fine. And there you go! Homemade cake flour!
All About All Purpose Flour
1. Basics
All purpose flour is just plain flour. It is the most common form used in baking and cooking. It is a mixture of soft and hard wheat. It comes in bleached and unbleached version.
2. Content
All purpose flour has a protein content of between 10 and 12 percent. In one cup of flour there are 455 calories and 1.22 g of fat.
Bleached: bleached flour has been treated with chlorine in order to whiten it. It is also enriched with nutrients that are lost during processing.
Unbleached: unbleached flour is naturally aged, is cream colored, and contains all of it’s natural nutrients.
3. “All” Purpose?
The term all purpose means just what it sounds like. Any recipe that calls for flour, this is what they want you to use. There are some specialty flours that may enhance the quality or texture of what you are making, but this will work just fine as well. It’s all purpose property comes from it’s average protein. It allows it to be very versatile.
Differences Between Cake Flour and All Purpose Flour
1. Uses
The biggest difference between cake and all purpose flour is what they are best utilized for. All purpose flour is suitable for all recipes however cake flour is specifically designed to enhance the quality of cakes and pastries or anything type of doughy foods.
2. Protein
The protein content in these two flours also make them very different. All purpose flour has a protein content between 10 and 12 percent. Cake flours protein content is much lower, at 7 percent.
3. Texture
Texture is another key difference between cake and all purpose flours. All purpose, or plain, flours are some what grainy and heavier than cake flours. Cake flour closely resembles powdered sugar and is very fluffy and light, which is what makes it ideal for baking.