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+971 52 456 1712
+971 52 456 1712
Cake flour recipes tend to call for it by name and assume you already have a box in the pantry. If you don’t — and it’s genuinely hard to find on some UAE supermarket shelves — you don’t need to postpone baking. A close substitute takes two ingredients and about five minutes.
Cake flour is a finely milled flour with a lower protein content than regular flour — usually around 7-9%, compared to 11-13% in all-purpose flour. That difference matters more than it sounds like it should. Protein is what forms gluten when flour meets liquid, and gluten is what gives baked goods their structure and chew. Less protein means less gluten, which means a softer, more delicate crumb — exactly the texture you want in a light sponge, a chiffon cake, or a classic vanilla layer cake.
Bread and pizza dough want the opposite: high protein, more gluten, more chew. Cake flour sits at the other end of that scale entirely.
You only need two things:
That’s one cup of cake flour substitute. To scale up, keep the ratio: for every cup of all-purpose flour, swap out 2 tablespoons for cornflour.
In grams, for anyone working off a kitchen scale rather than cups: combine 110g all-purpose flour with 16g cornflour, then sift together. This makes roughly 120g of cake flour substitute — close enough to 1 cup for most home recipes.
This is where most recipes trip up UAE readers, because the ingredient name means two different things depending on where the recipe was written.
So if a recipe (especially an American one) tells you to add cornstarch, and you’re shopping in the UAE, you’re looking for the box labelled corn flour. Just make sure it’s the fine, powdery white starch — not cornmeal or maize flour, which is coarser and used for very different things like flatbreads and coating fried food.
Substitute it 1:1 in place of cake flour in any recipe. If your recipe calls for 2 cups of cake flour, make the swap in two separate batches of 1 cup each rather than scaling the whole thing up at once — it sifts more evenly that way and you’re less likely to end up with pockets of unmixed starch.
One thing this substitute won’t do: add rising power. Cake flour, homemade or store-bought, has no baking powder or baking soda in it. If your recipe needs lift, that still has to come from a separate leavening agent, exactly as written.
Cake flour earns its place in delicate bakes — white cake, vanilla sponge, chiffon cake, angel food cake — where a soft, fine crumb is the entire point. It’s less necessary in recipes that are already sturdy or moisture-heavy, like a dense chocolate cake, a carrot cake, or a banana cake — the extra liquid and mix-ins in those recipes tend to overwhelm the difference cake flour would make anyway.
Keep it in an airtight container somewhere cool and dry, away from direct sunlight — a real consideration in UAE kitchens where pantry cupboards near a window or stove can run warmer than expected. Give it a quick whisk before using if it’s been sitting for a while, since the starch settles at the bottom over time. Used within a couple of months, it performs identically to a fresh batch.
Yes — in the UAE, cornflour and cornstarch are the same product sold under the British naming convention. Just check the box for the fine white starch, not cornmeal or maize flour.
No. It affects texture, not flavour. The final bake will taste the same as the original recipe intended; it’ll just have a softer, lighter crumb.
Yes — the ratio scales up cleanly. Mix and sift larger quantities at once (for example, 7 cups all-purpose flour with 1 cup cornflour) and store it in an airtight container for future bakes.
No. Self-raising flour already has baking powder and salt mixed in. Cake flour, whether homemade or store-bought, has no raising agent at all — you still add that separately according to your recipe.