I was wondering if a recipe calls for cake flour can you substitute it with all purpose...i read somewhere that 1 cup of cf is the same a 1 cup minuse 2 tbsp of alp...is this true...any help would be great...i think there was a post of this but i cant find it
thanks!!!

I have used that substitution several times an my cakes have turned out fine.

I have read that ONLY substitute when they indicate that you can. On some recipes you cannot substitute.

So make sure that the recipe you are trying allows for substitutes.

Cake flour is MUCH finer than A/P is... 27 times finer... Like sifting one cup of A/P 27 times, to get the right consitency of Cake Flour. IF you have time for that, then you'll have it right.

Personally I wouldn't sub A/P for cake Flour. Then again, the store 2 blocks form my house has cake flour if I really need it that bad.

hmmmmmmm... maybe i'll have to try both to see what the differences are. thanks for the advice.

the substituation is more like:

1 cup cake = 3/4 AP + 2 tbsp corn starch sifted together.

The big difference is that the gluten content of all-purpose flour is much higher than the content of cake flour. Gluten is the protein from a hard wheat flour. What this means in terms of baking results is that you will have a shorter molecular strand so your cake baked with cake flour will have a much more delicate crumb. Which is a good thing in some cases and not so good in others. For example in a stacked cake you want a denser crumb most of the time. So though you can substitute, you will not get exactly the results the recipe was meant to give because the other ingredients in that recipe are geared towards the type of flour you are told to use. You may be happy with the results, you may not. Yes, 99 times out of 100 the cake will still turn out to some degree, just not the same.
But you cannot just substitute one flour for the other without the flour adjustment because what will happen is that the flour will either end up very dry or too crumbly, not cook properly. And if the recipe tells you to sift your cake flour 3 times, there is a very good reason for it because cake flour tends to compact and you want it aerated. If it tells you to sift before measuring this can make a big difference also because sifted you will be using much less flour than you would if you just measure without sifting. Cake flour clumps much the way that powdered sugar does.
Oh and one more thing, cake flours in the U.S. already have cornstarch added to them which is why if you are substituting all purpose flour in a recipe calling for cake flour you must also make that adjustment.
Hugs Squirrelly

All I can say is WOW! She knows what she is talking about. Yeah Baby!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the information! Where I come from there is NO such thing as cake flour - we even don't have self-rising flour only different types and grade of flour so I have to substitute almost everything Now I will do that more corectly

Gosh, where do you live?

I know too that not all AP flours are created equal. King Arthur has more protein than Pillsbury, and I forget about the other brands. If I remember right Pillsbury unbleached is the best tasting out of all the big name brands.

Hehe, in a very very small country you probably never heard of - Slovenia. It has only 2 milion people...
We can get a lot of things here that are not avalible overseas and viceversa of course...
We have pink and yellow marshmellows though, but I wanna make a white MMF...
As far as the self-rising flour is concerned I use a regulaar one and add some baking powder to it. Does just the same

Thanks, I already made marshmellows from scratch - I just didn't know if they will work since they are not exactly the same as bought. Been asking here about that and people advise me the same thing - to make fondant form scratch
Bytheway - in my country fondant means an icing that is runny - very funny - I was asking about the fondant in a confectioner's store but they call fondant masa ticina and fondant is kind of royal icing to them
I bought neither of them at the end since they only sell large buckets of 15 kg (about 30 pounds) and that is kind of too much (and too expencive) for my domestic use right now
Gonna make fondant form scratch today Keep your fingers crossed - it's my first attempt

Good luck with your first attempt! It's really not that bad.

I'm not sure if homemade marshmallows would work for the MMF, but it seems reasonable enough, although it would be a lot of extra work.

We have a pourable fondant here too, to add to the confusion.

I think in other countries the dough like fondant is called sugarpaste. Maybe you'd have better luck searching for that?

They have sugarpaste (fondant) but in 15 kilos minimum - so I made it from scratch yesterday and it worked out just fine! But I filled the cake too much so the basketball was kind of ugly
I also made my first FBCT yesterday with a logo of a basketball team my boyfriend is playing for and guys loved it! I put the pics here if you'd like to see how my very first decorated cakes ever look like Not very profetional I must say but it's ok for the first time I guess... Have time to learn from you all!

Squirellycakes, I think you could right a book!!! You know it all girl!

So should I sift my AP a bunch of times, and and the cornstarch, or dont sift it at all? I am making a devils food cake and it calls for cake flour, but I cant get any, so I am using Ap. Any tips?