OK so I want to make this recipe but debating because I don't want to buy a box of cake flour.

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/17720/winning-banana-cupcakes

So I found online the substitute cake flour for all purpose in a recipe is
( http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/baking-flour-facts.htm )

When the recipe calls for:
1 cup sifted cake flour
Substitute:
1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sifted all-purpose flour

I'm like REALLY that's it? Why do recipes call for cake flour anyway if that's the only difference? Most people keep AP Flour in their pantry as a staple item whereas CFlour not. I don't get it.

Does anyone have answer for this?
Suz

I believe cake flour has the right amount of baking powder already added. in..I may be wrong though...

Oooh - I was wondering the same thing. I usually use the WASC, which calls for an extra cup of flour, and I wondered if I used cake flour if it would come out differently...?

This is something I would really like to know . The list of flours is endless. We cannot get cake flour here in Ireland . Think you subsitute 2 tablespoons of cornflour per cup of plain flour . Not sure if plain flour is the same as all purpose though . Ive even recently come accross a blog where plain flour is microwaved to make it more like cake flour .
Just bought the cake bible and cake flour is used . So confused

Cake flour has much less protein than AP flour, it is also chlorinated, which makes it more acidic. In the US, most cake flour is not self rising, so you need to add your own levening.
I have been on a quest to find the perfect scratch vanilla cake, through trial and error, and much help from Linda here on CC, and Fromscratchsf, I have learned a LOT!! Just bought the book Bake Wise, best book on baking science in my opinion!
I have concluded that I don't like the taste of cake flour. It tastes very metalic to me, but I know most bakers use it when scratch baking. I use bleached AP flour and started replacing 10% of it with potato starch in a recipe. so far so good

So I made the recipe using the substitute suggestion shown below. Cakes came out beautiful and tasted delicious. Thank goodness!