Cake Flour

I like to make cakes. Everyday, not fancy, spur-of-the moment kind of cakes.  And it's easy, if you know proportions.

Decide first how big a cake you want to make.  2 c. of flour is regular, 3 is extra big.

You will use almost as much sugar as you do flour.   2 cups flour, slightly less sugar.

Fat and oil should make up about 1/3 c. per cup of flour.  2 cups flour, 2/3 cup of butter or oil and butter combined.  Beat this in with the sugar for the first step.  Whip it until it's "fluffy" or some semblance thereof.

1 egg per cup of flour, plus 1 extra.  Add to sugar/fat mixture one at a time.
Measure out your flour and add salt, 1/4 tsp. per cup of flour.

One teaspoon of baking powder per cup of flour.  Whisk this in with the dry ingredients.

Alternate adding flour and liquid to the sugar/butter/egg mix.

Use liquid enough to make your batter thick and not soupy.  This "liquid" can include fruit, and  I would start with a quarter cup per each cup of flour used.

Use your imagination.  Add whatever seems right.

But use cake flour.

And I have a problem with store-bought cake flour.  For one thing, it's in a box.  And I'm pretty bad about searching out expiration dates--who has time for that?  So I see a box of flour and I wonder how long that's been sitting there, and if it will infest my other boxes of stuff with weevils.  I'm not looking to get protein that way, thank you very much.


This is definitely the best way to have cake flour ready to use.
Get a nice big canister; I happen to love the large clear ones because I can see what I have.

In a big mixing bowl, put 2 cups of all purpose flour and 1/3 cup of cornstarch.  *The other recipes I have seen are silly, with measuring out cups, and removing some flour, and adding cornstarch then, but this really makes more sense and less mess.









Mix them up with a whisk.

Then put them into a sieve and shake it vigorously over the big bowl.  You can do this multiple times if you wish, but let's not get too crazy here.

                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Place this mixture into your canister.


And you're done.   Now go make yourself a delicious  cake.

Fruit Cocktail Cake