AWhich do you prefer when making cupcakes from scratch? Cake flour or All purpose flour?

Depends on the recipe.  You can't change one for the other based on preference.  Each flour has a different gluten content and each is milled from a different wheat and has a different gluten content - so the leavening is different in a recipe calling for APF versus cake and you will get a different texture.  

The recipe I am currently in love with calls for equal parts cake and all purpose flour.  Up until now I've really only had success with all purpose, but thanks to CC I learned I need to sift the cake flour into the cups before measuring - huge difference!  When I just scooped and leveled the cakes would come out like sweet rubber - yuck.

I'm glad that worked out for you!  Professional recipes are generally by weight, pretty much never cups so I'm glad you had better success sifting.  Here's a great You Tube video by the great RLB that shows how you shold be measuring all your flour if your recipe calls for cups:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E3Rw--oHg4&list=PL741A4EB4258D9F17

Good luck!

A

Thanks FromScratchSF, I'm such a fan of yours! So is there a table somewhere that converts to what cups (1/4, 1/2, 1/3...) SHOULD weigh? I'm on board with weighing just learned to bake with cups is all... this old dog is fine with learning new tricks :grin:

AThe problem is that "cups" is a made up measurement that only us Americans seem to use. it's a measure of volume that doesn't really mean anything. as Rose says, if you buy two "cups" from two different manufacturers, you will get different volumes. isn't that stupid, and absolutely insane? so actually no, I don't have any one chart that I use for everything. there are three measurements that I have committed to memory that seem to work for my recipes. all-purpose flour weighs 4.25 ounces, cake flour weighs 3.5 ounces, and sugar weighs 7 ounces per cup. don't ask me where I got those, I think out of the Cake Bible. I don't use any one chart 100% because nothing really agrees when measuring by volume. you know, 1 pound of feathers is a lot of feathers compared to 1 pound of sugar! and don't ask me to convert that to grams, no charts seem to agree on that either!

Here is a link to a conversion table that I use often.  Under the video you will find a chart that you can print out. 

http://www.joyofbaking.com/WeightvsVolumeMeasurement.html

AHmmm... looked up the chart and converted and sure enough there are differences - according to the chart 1 cup of all purpose flour equals 4.5 ounces equals 130 grams; 4.25 equals 120 grams. So I will go with FSSF because it's easier to divide by 3 and 4. For sugar 3.5 oz equals 99g. In case anyone else is interested it's much simpler (for me anyway) to use grams because base ten comes easier for purposes of division than 16 oz in a pound.

Thanks again FSSF, I just hope this actually translates to consistently yummy cakes!