15/11/2023
Flour is as important as every other ingredient in cake making and it's mostly made from wheat. It's the thickening agent in cake. It gives the cake bulk and structure. Flour hold wet ingredients together and it can do this because of the protein content called gluten. Gluten forms when wheat flour is worked.
When baking, flour is usually sifted with other dry ingredients such as baking powder or baking soda and salt. Sifting flour is very necessary because it aerates the flour and at the same time, remove unwanted particles in the flour. Some recipes calls for sifting the flour more than once, some call for measuring already sifted flour i.e, you sift your flour, then measure out the needed quantity. The weights are not the same. Sifting flour, like I said, aerates the flour thereby giving your cake a light and smooth feel. It helps in achieving our much needed "light and fluffy" cakes.
Now, there are different types of flour used in baking. There is the bread flour, all purpose flour and cake flour. These types of flours are so named because of the type of wheat used and the way they are processed. While there are other grains used in making flour, wheat is the most common. Bread flour is made from hard wheat. Hard wheat is so high in gluten and that is why it's perfect for bread. A mixture of both hard and soft wheat is the reason why all purpose flour is best for our precious cakes and other pastries. Cake flour is made from soft wheat which is low in gluten and it's silky and soft and often has cornstarch mixed into it. If your recipe calls for cake flour, you don't need to panic. Simply add 20g of cornstarch to 100g of all purpose flour and you are good to bake.
It's best to store your flour, especially,whole grain flours in the refrigerator and bring it to room temperature before baking. Dusting your baking pans with flour after greasing helps your cake come out easily after baking.
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