Can I Use Cake Flour Instead of All-Purpose Flour?
How to Choose Flour for Cakes, Bread and Pastries
You already know that cake flour and bread flour are neither the same nor exactly interchangeable. But do you know why T55 behaves differently from a bread flour of similar protein percentage, or when a cornflour blend stops being a viable substitute?
This is a functional reference for bakers who want to move beyond the what and understand the why. As much as baking rewards practice, it reserves its best results for those who understand the science behind it.
Protein Content is the Starting Point
Before getting into specific flour types, it helps to understand what separates one flour from another. Protein content is the starting point, but not the whole story.
Glutenin is what builds dough strength and elasticity; gliadin is what gives it extensibility, the ability to stretch without snapping. Together they determine how a dough handles, how it rises and how it holds its shape. As a general rule, higher protein means more gluten development, which produces chewier textures and stronger structure. Lower protein means less gluten, a more tender crumb and a finer, softer result. What makes this more nuanced is that the balance between glutenin and gliadin varies between wheat varieties and growing regions — which is why two flours with identical protein percentages can behave quite differently in the dough. It is also why the origin and wheat variety of a flour matter alongside the number on the bag.
Uni-President My Day Home Made Series Bread Flour (1KG) is a reliable example of a high-protein bread flour where that gluten development shows up exactly as described.
Milling fineness also plays a role, as a more finely milled flour absorbs water differently and produces a finer crumb. And in some speciality flours, ash content (the mineral residue left after milling) affects both flavour and how the flour handles fermentation. This is particularly relevant when working with French flours like T55, which we'll come to.
Understanding these variables is what separates intuitive baking from guesswork. The flour you use is never a neutral decision.
| Flour Type | Protein Content (Approx.) | Best For | Notes |
| Cake Flour | 7-9% | Sponge cakes, chiffon, cupcakes | Finely milled; prioritises tenderness over structure |
| Pastry Flour | 8-10% | Pie crusts, tarts, scones, cupcakes | Moderate milling; balanced between tenderness and structure |
| All-Purpose Flour | 10-12% | Muffins, quick breads, cookies |
Middle-ground flour; not optimised for either end |
|
French T55 (Baguette Flour) |
~11-12% | Baguettes, brioche, croissants | Low ash content; handles fermentation and lamination distinctively |
| Bread Flour | 12-14% | Yeasted breads, pizza dough, bagels | Strong, elastic gluten network; built for fermentation |
Flour For Cakes
Cake flour is milled from soft wheat, sitting at a low protein content of between 7 and 9 percent. But what separates a good commercial cake flour from a basic low-protein flour is what happens beyond milling: starch modification. In commercial cake flour production, the starch granules are treated, typically through chlorination or heat treatment, to improve their ability to absorb fat and liquid evenly. This is what gives a properly made cake flour its characteristic fine, almost powdery texture, and why it produces a softer, more delicate crumb with a tight, even structure.
In practice, using the correct flour is the exact difference between:
Success: A chiffon that holds its lift and volume.
Failure: A chiffon that slowly deflates on the cooling rack.
A common move among home bakers is to reach for all-purpose flour when cake flour isn’t on hand, on the basis that flour is flour. The crumb tells a different story. All-purpose flour in a chiffon recipe will produce a noticeably denser, slightly tougher result, because the higher protein content builds more gluten than that style of cake is designed to handle. The more the recipe depends on a light, airy structure (high egg white ratios, minimal fat), the more pronounced that difference becomes.
That said, not every cake calls for cake flour. Pound cake, banana cake and carrot cake benefit from the slightly firmer structure that all-purpose flour provides. The recipe will usually make this clear.
If you run out of cake flour and need an immediate substitute, you can mix a standard workaround. For every 100g of cake flour required, use:
- 85g of all-purpose flour
- 15g of cornflour
Note: Sift the mixture together at least twice.
For straightforward home recipes, this gets close enough. However, treat this blend as a temporary stopgap rather than a true equivalent.
This substitute will likely underperform in high-ratio recipes (where the sugar exceeds the flour by weight, such as layered cakes and chiffons). Using the workaround here often results in:
- A less stable crumb
- Sinking in the centre
- Weeping during the cooling process
For delicate bakes, using genuine cake flour is not just a preference. It makes a measurable difference in the final structure.
The cornflour blend gets you close, but Uni-President Super Cake Flour (22KG) gets you the engineered starch distribution that holds fine crumb structure under high moisture and sugar loads.
Flour For Bread
Bread flour sits at the opposite end of the protein spectrum, typically containing 12 to 14 percent protein. This higher protein level is non-negotiable for yeasted dough. It builds the strong gluten network needed to trap carbon dioxide during fermentation, giving a loaf its signature rise, chew and open crumb.
A persistent misconception in home baking is that any white flour works for bread, especially in recipes labelled “foolproof”. But using cake or all-purpose flour in a yeasted loaf yields obvious failures:
- Poor Handling: The dough feels slack and excessively sticky
- Weak Rise: The loaf turns out flat and underwhelming
- Wrong Texture: The finished bread crumbles instead of tearing cleanly
For sandwich loaves, toast breads, and anything that must hold its shape through slicing, bread flour cannot be substituted.
Credit: @passionatecreate from IG
Sourdough deserves a special warning. The long fermentation times in a sourdough bake put real stress on the gluten network, and a weaker flour gradually loses its structure over the hours of proofing, which produces a dough that spreads rather than rises. This is why bread flour is the standard recommendation.
That said, all-purpose flour can work for sourdough, but with adjustments. The key is reducing the water content (by 5 to 10 percent) of your dough. A lower hydration compensates for the weaker gluten network, giving the dough enough structure to hold its shape through the proof rather than spreading flat. The tradeoff is a tighter, denser crumb than bread flour would produce, and less of the open, blistered interior that defines a well-made sourdough. For a beginner loaf or an everyday sandwich bread, that is an acceptable result. For a serious bake, the right flour from the start will absolutely take you further.
Your sourdough requires flour that does the heavy lifting. Try Uni-President My Day Home Made Series Bread Flour (1KG), which gives the gluten network the strength to see it through.
Flour For Pastries
Pastry sits in the middle of the protein range and the challenge with pastry flour is finding that balance between enough structure to hold together and enough tenderness to avoid toughness. Shortcrust pastry, tart cases and flaky pie crusts are deliberately short in texture, meaning the gluten development is kept deliberately low so the pastry snaps rather than pulls.
Many home bakers use all-purpose flour for shortcrust. It works well enough, provided the dough is handled minimally and kept cold throughout. The mistake is in the handling, not always the flour. Overworking a pastry dough develops gluten regardless of which flour you have used, and what you get is a pastry that shrinks in the tin and turns out chewy rather than crisp.
Laminated pastries (croissants, kouign-amann, pain au chocolat) are a different matter entirely. These doughs go through repeated folding and rolling, and they need enough gluten strength to withstand that process without tearing at the layers. Too little protein and the dough will tear; too much and the layers become bready rather than flaky.
French T55 flour is the standard for this category, and the reason goes beyond its moderate protein level. The 'T' in T55 stands for 'Type,' while the number 55 refers to the ash content, the percentage of minerals remaining after the flour is incinerated at high temperature. T55 contains between 0.50 and 0.60 percent ash. A lower ash content indicates a more refined, whiter flour with less bran and germ present. T-number reflects refinement and mineral content, not protein strength. A T45 can be higher in protein than a T55 depending on the wheat used.
In T55, the ash content translates to a cleaner fermentation, a more extensible dough and a greater tolerance for the mechanical stress of repeated lamination. Those minerals also contribute to yeast activity during fermentation, which alongside technique, fermentation time and starter culture, affects the flavour development of the finished bread. It is also why T55 behaves differently from a bread flour of similar protein percentage. Together, the protein quality and ash content produce a dough that is pliable but not slack, and strong but not tough.
It is a technical distinction with a very tangible result. A croissant made with T55 will develop the open, honeycomb interior and distinct layering that defines the pastry. One made with a substitute flour may look similar going into the oven but will reveal itself in the crumb. Denser, less defined and without the same shatter on the outer crust.
The flour is half the equation for laminated doughs. Lescure Unsalted Pastry Butter Sheet (1KG) handles the other half.
Where Substitutions Hold Up (and Where They Don't)
Some swaps are workable with minor adjustments. Others will produce a consistently disappointing result regardless of how carefully the rest of the recipe is followed.
Substitutions that work reasonably well:
- All-purpose flour in place of bread flour for low-hydration flatbreads and some rustic loaves, where a slight reduction in chew is acceptable
- All-purpose flour for shortcrust pastry, provided the dough is handled carefully and rested in the fridge before rolling
- All-purpose flour blended with cornflour in place of cake flour for sponge cakes and cupcakes; close enough for straightforward home recipes, though it should never be seen as an equivalent (in more demanding bakes, particularly high-ratio cake recipes where sugar exceeds flour by weight, this blend is likely to underperform)
On the cake flour substitute: the reason the blend falls short in demanding recipes comes down to starch modification. Commercial cake flour undergoes physical starch modification during processing, enabling it to support high sugar and liquid loads without the batter collapsing. The homemade blend does not replicate this, and in high-ratio recipes, that gap becomes difficult to work around.
For bakers who want reliable results without the compromise, Uni-President Super Cake Flour (22KG) is worth keeping on hand. Its 8.5 percent protein sits at the precise range for cake baking — low enough to keep the crumb soft and tender, but strong enough to hold a high-moisture batter without collapsing. Its 0.48 percent ash content indicates a high degree of milling purity, which delivers a bright, clean colour and allows delicate flavours like vanilla, matcha and butter to come through without interference, no chemical bleaching.
Substitutions that consistently underperform:
- Cake flour in yeasted bread recipes, as the gluten network will not develop sufficiently, and the loaf will be dense and crumbly
- Bread flour in a chiffon or sponge cake, leading to the crumb being rubbery and tough, no matter how gently the batter is folded
- Self-raising flour substituted for plain flour without adjusting the leavening — this almost always throws the rise off, producing an uneven, domed or sunken result
A useful heuristic: The further a substitute flour’s protein content sits from the original, the more the result will diverge from what the recipe intended.
A Note on Measuring Flour When Making Swaps
Measuring by weight is essential when substituting flours. Cake flour is finely milled and considerably lighter than bread flour, which means a cup of each contains a meaningfully different weight of flour. A recipe that calls for one cup of cake flour and receives one cup of bread flour by volume has already introduced an error before the protein difference even comes into play.
A digital scale removes this variable entirely. For reference: one cup of cake flour weighs approximately 100g, while one cup of all-purpose flour typically weighs between 120g and 130g, depending on how it has been scooped. If volume measuring is unavoidable, spoon the flour into the cup rather than scooping directly from the bag, then level it off with a straight edge. Scooping directly compacts the flour and consistently produces more than the recipe intends.
Quick Reference: Which Flour for Which Bake?
All-Purpose Flour
| What You're Making | Recommended Flour | Can You Substitute? |
|---|---|---|
| Cookies / Muffins | All-purpose | Cake flour gives a more tender crumb |
| Pound Cake / Banana Cake |
All-purpose | Cake flour gives a lighter result |
| Shortcrust / Tart Pastry | All-purpose or pastry flour | Cake flour not recommended |
Bread Flour
| What You're Making | Recommended Flour | Substitution Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Pizza Dough | Bread flour | All-purpose flour is suitable for thin-crust pizzas. |
| Sandwich Loaf / Toast Bread |
Bread flour | All-purpose flour produces a softer, less chewy loaf with reduced rise. |
| Sourdough | Bread flour | All-purpose flour can be used but produces a denser loaf. |
Cake Flour
| What You're Making | Recommended Flour | Substitution Notes |
|---|---|---|
|
Chiffon Cake / |
Cake flour |
Use an all-purpose flour and cornflour blend if cake flour is unavailable. |
Other / Speciality Flours
| What You're Making | Recommended Flour | Substitution Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Baguette | French T55 flour | Bread flour is a suitable alternative. |
| Croissants / Laminated Pastry | French T55 flour or bread flour | Substitutions are limited and the texture will differ noticeably. |
Know Your Flour and Trust Your Results
It is satisfying to understand why a recipe works. Once you know that cake flour stays tender because of lower protein, that bread flour holds its rise because of higher gluten strength and that T55 threads the needle for laminated pastry, the guesswork largely disappears. You stop hoping the substitution will work and start knowing when it will.
Axquisite carries an exclusive range of baking flours sourced from Taiwan and France, including Uni-President bread flours, French T55, Super Cake Flour and the UNIFLOUR series. Explore our full flour collection here.
