Your Guide to Baking with Different Types of Flour

If you walk down the baking aisle to pick up flour, you’ll probably notice an abundance of choices. A good rule of thumb is to assume that if the recipe calls for flour, it’s asking for all-purpose flour, unless otherwise indicated. No matter the type, flour provides structure to whatever you’re making. Here are some of the other kinds of flour to consider the next time you’re baking.

Whole Wheat Flour

Whole wheat flour is dense and rises less than all-purpose flour. It also has a slightly nutty flavor. When baking with this flour, try to let the mixture rest for about 10 minutes to allow it to soften. This is going to give you a better consistency in your final product.

Whole wheat flour works well in dessert recipes like brownies and cookies but is also delicious in waffle and scone recipes. To get a taste of whole wheat flour, try our recipe for Chocolate Chunk Brownies.

White Whole Wheat Flour

White whole wheat flour is very similar to whole wheat flour but has lighter coloring because it’s made from a lighter version of wheat. This flour is sweeter than whole wheat flour but is similar to work with.

While this flour works well in cookie, bread and muffin recipes, we don’t recommend using it in lighter cake recipes like a sponge cake. Try these tasty Carrot Ginger Muffins made with white whole wheat flour.

Gluten-Free Flour

Gluten-free flours have grown in popularity over the past few years and are great for those who need to take dietary restrictions into consideration. They work in a very similar way to wheat flours and mimic their texture as well. One of the most popular types of gluten-free flour is almond flour.

Almond flour can make baked goods dense, but works well with cookies, cobblers, bread, brownies and muffins. Our yummy Chocolate-Coconut Blondies are a great way to give a gluten-free flour a try!

Self-Rising Flour

Self-rising flour, which is called for in many recipes, isn’t the same as all-purpose flour. Instead, this flour mixes baking powder and salt in with all-purpose flour. If you don’t have any on hand, you can make it yourself by mixing 1 cup of all-purpose flour, 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder and ¼ teaspoon of fine salt, for every cup of self-rising flour in the recipe.

Self-rising flour should not be used in place of all-purpose flour, but is called for in some pastry, bread, biscuit, cake and cupcake recipes. Our Aprons team uses it in our recipe for Blue Ribbon Cobbler.

Cake Flour

Cake flour is very fine and normally comes bleached. Flour is bleached to speed up the aging process. The bleach also softens the flour and helps the starch absorb more of the liquid and fat in recipes, which creates a nice spongy texture in baked goods.

As you might’ve guessed by the name, cake flour is commonly used in cake recipes, especially pound cake or our delicious Angel Food Cake.