I purchased The Fannie Farmer Cookbook in an antique store. This book was originally published in 1896. Fannie Farmer’s name is still well-known today.

In the chapter for Cakes, the author gives some tips about the ingredients.

It turns out there are a few decisions to make about the flour used in recipes.

Firstly, all flour should be stored in airtight containers.

Secondly, some recipes call for cake flour, which has less gluten and more starch than all-purpose flour. Cake flour makes lighter cakes and can be used in any cake recipe.

Cakes made with all-purpose flour are also good, though sometimes using cake flour makes a significant difference.

Tip: If you don’t have cake flour on hand: for every cup of all-purpose flour, use 2 tablespoons less of flour in the recipe. Alternately, if you have cake flour and want to substitute it for all-purpose flour, use 2 tablespoons more of cake flour for every cup.

Thirdly, don’t use quick-mixing all-purpose flour as a substitute for cake flour. Also, don’t substitute with self-rising flour because it has both leavening and salt.

Fourthly, sifting lightens flour and mixes the dry ingredients. In older recipes, all flour was supposed to be sifted. However, flour is sifted many times during the packaging process today (1896) and the cookbook authors found that this extra step of sifting flour made no difference, except in refined cakes like angel food or sponge cakes because lighter flour makes it easier to fold in beaten egg whites.

When not sifting the flour, scoop it into the measuring cup and the level it off with a knife.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Revised by Cunningham, Marion and Laber, Jeri. The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, Alfred A Knopf Inc., 1983.