If you don’t have cake flour on hand, or live in a country where its banned (like here in New Zealand!), then this cake flour substitute is a great alternative. You can use it for most recipes that call for cake flour, and my cakes always come out softer with a more delicate crumb when I use this substitute 🙂
What is cake flour?
Cake flour is a special type of flour that’s used to make, well, cakes! Its made from a soft wheat and has less protein than regular all-purpose flour. Cake flour has a protein content of around 6-8%, whereas all purpose flour has a protein content of around 10-12%. That makes cake flour perfect for making cakes and pastries that need to be super soft and tender.
Why is cake flour banned in New Zealand?
Cake flour is chlorinated, which basically means that is goes through a bleaching process which weakens the protein in the flour. It’s this bleaching process that makes it an illegal product here in New Zealand – who would have thought cake flour would be banned right?! I know I was first shocked to find this out.
So what is so bad about the bleaching process? Well, it’s the chemicals that are used in the bleaching process which are deemed as harmful, hence it’s ban.
DISCLAIMER: Please do not take this as me telling you not to use cake flour. Honestly, I haven’t done enough research in the area myself and it’s not something I actively avoid when I go overseas, so that’s completely up to you to decide 🙂
What is a cake flour substitute?
Now I am SO DETERMINED to share the softest, fluffiest cakes with you all, so I use a cake flour substitute in many of my cake recipes. This substitute consists of a mix of regular all purpose flour and cornstarch (hence why you’ll see cornstarch in a lot of my recipes, like my very popular vanilla cake and red velvet cake recipes!).
To make this cake flour substitute it’s really easy.
Place a cup of regular all purpose flour into a bowl and remove two tablespoons of it. Replace the two tablespoons with two tablespoons of cornstarch.
Give it a good mix and you have a cake flour substitute! 🙂
Cake Flour Substitute
Print Pin VideoIMPORTANT: For accuracy, I would recommend using the gram measurements provided, as those are the exact quantities I use. Cup measurements are given as estimates (based on US cup measurements) to make it easier for those who do not have a scale.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (120 g) flour - regular, all purpose
- 2 tbsp (16 g) cornstarch - also known as cornflour
Instructions
- Place your flour in a bowl and remove 2 tablespoons of it.
- Add in the cornstarch and mix until well combined (see note 1).
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information are estimates only as they are automatically calculated by a third party application. Actual values may differ based on brands and types of products used.
43 Comments
Hi MK,
what are your thoughts on substituting cornstarch for gluten?as where I am it’s more readily available
Hi Shish! 🙂 Do you mean gluten free flour? If so, I haven’t tried that myself, but it should work fine!
To add to this, the protein in flours can be VERY different depending on brand and country, even if they use the same terms. For example, AP in Canada is like bread flour in the US and UK. So it’s beneficial to state protein percentage to make sure whatever flour you use is like the recipe writer’s flour.
Otherwise you’ll make a cake over and over wondering what is wrong, and it’s not you, it’s the wheat.
(Similar happens with the actual size of “cups” if you want to get extra frustrated.)
Hi M! That is so interesting about the difference in protein content, particular between AP flour in the US and Canada! Being so close, I would have thought they would be the same, so it’s certainly interesting to learn 🙂
Yes, cup sizes are big one that many people aren’t aware of. When people ask me for my biggest baking tip, one of my top ones is always to use a scale for best results 😀
Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge 🙂
Hi MK,
I really like your YouTube videos, i learned a lot from those, and i’m from NZ too… 🙂
Could you please assist my questions below? thank you in advance.
1.) What butter or spread is good (brand) for butter cake and chocolate cake?
2.) I have a convection oven, i understand the baking times and temperature are different.
But its hard to decide when the cake volume changes.
3.) Eg: for 1kg i’d keep for 160Celcious for 1hr.
is it the same temperature for both butter and cholate cake please?
4.) Eg: i’m baking in a cylinder shape round cake tray.
800g at 160Celcious , what should be the baking time for it please?
5.) Eg: 2Kg cake pan baking time and temperature please?
If you could please advise, thank you so much. If you have done any YouTube videos on this, please share with me, thanks again,
Hi Sajini! 🙂 So glad you’re enjoying the YouTube videos and so nice to see you’re from NZ 😀
For butter, I use unsalted butter and Mainland or Westgold are the brands I use. Any unsalted butter from the supermarket will work well though as most dairy here in NZ is really good quality 🙂
In terms of the oven changes when baking with different volumes, I am not too sure sorry as I don’t weigh my cakes. The baking time can also change based on the type of cake (e.g. sponge cakes usually cook faster than butter cakes). With my cake recipes, because they’re on the softer side I usually don’t advise making tall cakes as the cakes may not rise well. Because of this, the baking time regardless of how large the cake is usually around the same as the thickness of the cake is usually similar. E.g. for my vanilla cake recipe it yields two 8 inch cake tins. If doubling the recipe, you would need to either distribute the batter between four 8 inch cake tins or two larger 10 inch cake tins, so the thickness of the cakes end up being very similar regardless of how big in inches they are. Hope that makes sense and so sorry I couldn’t of more help!
Hi MK! I recently tried your Oreo cake recipe and it’s amazing! I’m curious, for cake flour substitute, would it be fine to make up a big batch and put in a container to use as needed? Thanks in advance!
Hi Cassie! So so happy to hear you enjoyed the Oreo cake recipe 😀
So technically you could, although for my recipes I sometimes adjust the ratios of the cornstarch to flour and they don’t match this cake flour substitute exactly. For that reason, I would recommend using the exact gram measurements provided in each recipe just in case 🙂
You could use it though for recipes that use only all purpose flour if you wanted to play around with trying to achieve a more soft crumb 🙂
Hope that helps!
Thank you for this tip!! I never seemed to have “cake flour” on hand when needed.
You’re so welcome B! Glad it was helpful 🙂
Hi,
I am from Australia and just wondering is biscuit flour the same as cake flour?
Thank you
Hi Jacqui! 🙂 I haven’t used biscuit flour myself, but from my little knowledge of it, I believe it’s specifically made to use in biscuits and therefore has a slightly higher protein content than cake flour, but a lower protein content than all purpose flour. The amount of protein affects the texture of what you’re baking 🙂
Hope that helps!
Minor note from a grammar weenie – you wrote “where it’s banned”. The possessive form of “it” is “its”, which is the right word to use here. (The word “it’s” is a contraction of “it is” or “it has”.) To remember which one to use it help to remember none of the possessive pronouns have apostrophes: his, hers, ours, its. Cheers.
Hi Cindy! 🙂 Ohhh thanks for the correction! Will amend this now 🙂
MK, I think you were correct to say “ where it’s banned “ and not use the possessive. I replied with “ confused” and when I pressed Post, Auto correct retyped
Rather “where its banned” to it’s
Please correct my comment.
BTW, I read your recipes and your comments, I’m impressed with your mastery in baking. Thank you.
I think Maryam did not make any grammar mistake, “…. where it’s banned”, which means “…. where it is banned”. The cake flour is banned in New Zealand => …. it is banned in New Zealand. It is not in the form of possessive. Cheers.
Confused!!! “ where it is banned” ( it’s) is wrong? Rather “ where it’s banned” is correct. ?
How does being banned is a possessive of where ?
I think you are incorrect.
Hi could I use arrowroot powder or tapioca starch instead of corn starch.
Hi Dion! 🙂 I haven’t tried those substitutes myself so I’m not too sure sorry! Would love to hear how you go if you decide to try it out 🙂
Hi MK I look at all of your recipes and I love them I have tried a few and I got fantastic results, when ever I want to bake something I go to your channel thank you for your amazing baking tip 😊
Hi Susan! Thank you so much for the wonderful feedback 😀 so happy to hear you’re loving the recipes – truly appreciate all the support 😀
Hi. Sorry if this sounds a bit confusing but how would you let’s say replace a particular cake flour in grams with ap flour & cornflour? Example, a recipe calls for 213 grams of cake flour so then I would substitute it with around 200 gms of ap flour and 25 gms of corn flour? 😄
Heya! Not confusing at all 🙂 so I would basically substitute an 1/8th of the original quantity with cornflour. So in your case it would be about 26g of cornflour and the rest would be regular flour 🙂 hope that makes sense!