Should i sift cake flour

Well, I think that sifting flour is often a waste of time. Traditionally, recipes ask you to sift ingredients as a way to aerate them and guarantee consistency between cup measurements, since cups of unsifted flour will vary widely in weight depending on how tightly the flour was packed in the bag. Sifting the flour helped promote consistency in recipe results by removing the larger particles that could potentially result in densely textured baked goods or even ones that would sink in the middle.

But modern techniques have improved significantly since then. Victoria sponge , it makes very little difference as most of the aeration happens in the creaming step and the air is pretty stable in the batter.

For chemically aerated cakes CO2 bubbles made in the batter by chemical reaction between acid and alkali, e. For butter cakes though, not usually necessary. This is such an interesting experiment! Do you have any posts like this comparing AP flour and cake flour? Thank you SO much for this! I have always wondered why some recipes called for sifting and others did not and what difference it really made. This is awesome information! Thank you so much!

This is going to save me a lot of time and effort I dislike sifting a lot! I really enjoy your kitchen experiments!!! Whoa- this is awesome!

Thank you for this. Now all that I read and actually do is just the opposite! And the result is just awesome, I always get my cake smooth and moist just the way it should be. I guess that is why I am always challenging convention. I want to know for myself and share what really works! Hi Summer, I always sift the flour regardless any type. Now more baking for my other cupcake recipes … Happy dance!

Now I do it all the time and it is a pain in the hiney sometimes. Thank you for the article! I use a lot of bulk ingredients and I always sift! For example, I use a high quality cocoa powder and find there does tend to be lumps. I would have to overmix the batter in order to get the lumps out, so sifting is a requirement for us!

Thanks so much for these awesome science tutorials! They are so helpful! This is fabulous info, I was just baking my 10th batch of carrot cake cupcakes in the last two years, tweaking it each time to get closer to what I was trying for, and wondering — what difference does whisking vs.

I usually sift, but tonight I whisked. I was also wondering why CIA has a recipe that starts out for 10 min then lowers to Your other article at least showed the different affects temps from to have on a cake, so I can begin to guess what changing the temperature half way through would have. That was really helpful! I used to sift my dry ingredients but started getting a bit lazy!

I find that,as long as the big clumps are broken up, then the mix is absolutely fine! Great information!!! I have a concert, sifting makes a difference when measuring, some recipes said 1 cup of flour and the instruction require to sift, other said one cup of sifted flour, so should a measure before or after sifting if I decide to sift. Hopefully I make my question clear, so I can get help… thank you very much! Wow Amanda! I would live in a chemistry lab over a kitchen any day but i now see that I can do both as the science geek side if me has been stimulated.

Thank you ladies! Many Blessings! Sifting 3 times was drummed into my head in Home Economic class. To this day I whisk, then sift 3 times. Notice too the sifted cake is more level. What a waste of money and time. You may not need it very often, but it's still a good idea to have an old-fashioned flour sifter on hand. They were once in every kitchen, sometimes even attached to a free-standing cabinet known as a Hoosier cabinet. A flour sifter was a necessary item to have if the home cook wanted tender cakes and biscuits.

Putting your flour through a sifter will break up any lumps in the flour, which means you can get a more accurate measurement. Sifted flour is much lighter than unsifted flour and is easier to mix into other ingredients when making batters and doughs. When making baked items such as cookies and bars , your recipe instructions may tell you to measure all dry ingredients, such as flour, spices, cocoa, etc. This process helps to combine everything evenly before they are mixed with other ingredients, such as eggs and butter.