I have a very good friend that was asking me the other day about substituting wheat flour instead of "regular" flour in a cake recipe.

First of all, isn't "regular" flour made from wheat?

Any way, she wanted to know if you substitute wheat flour 1 for 1 for regular flour, or is there another ratio? For instance, if a recipe calls for 1 cup of flour, would you use the same amount of wheat flour?

TIA for your help!

they are both wheat, what she is probably referring to is "whole wheat". there are differences in glutens and some wheat is softer etc. wish i could give you better info...i do know that the results will not be the same though. it will be denser and not as soft if you substitute, you should look for a recipe that calls specifically for whole wheat flour to end up with a better result.

Look for "whole wheat pastry flour". This is a much lighter flour than traditional, all-purpose whole wheat and will perform nicer in cakes and the like. My regular grocery store carries the Hodgson Mill brand and they keep it in the baking aisle with all of the other flours. Some stores keep it in the health food section. I have usually been able to use this at around a 1:1 substitution for regular flour, but you might have to experiment. It depends on the recipe.
It is not bad at all. Not quite the same texture as regular cake flour, but can be quite good in its own right.
I would avoid using regular old whole-wheat flour if you can. It is very heavy and has a totally different texture. Only thing I like it for is breads.
Heather

Ok...

Let me try again.

If I have a recipe that calls for 1 cup of wheat flour, can I use 1 cup of regular flour instead?

I'm not sure if I asked the question in a way that was hard to understand, or if I didn't understand what my friend was asking of me. She made a cake that was from a mis and had wheat flour in it, and she absolutely did not like the cake. But she has several cake recipes that call for wheat flour.

Yes, it's basically a 1:1 sub, although the texture will be heavier and denser and you can fix some of that (but not all) by experimenting with the amount of flour. There is no magic amount to tell your friend for substitution......it varies by recipe. Or.......you can use the whole wheat pastry flour, as I said before, and this will result in a lighter, less dense cake, more similar to your regular cake.......but still not exactly the same. If you want the cake exactly the same texture as cake flour, then you have to use cake flou

When I used whole wheat flour for making banana bread, I substituted half the flour with whole wheat flour. It came out great! I believe it states it on the whole wheat flour bag (I think it was Gold Medal) that you should not use all whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour unless your recipe specifically calls for whole wheat flour.

HTH.

Sheryl