When Out of All-Purpose Flour, What's the Best Substitute? (2024)

FAQs

When Out of All-Purpose Flour, What's the Best Substitute? ›

All-purpose flour is the most common flour called for in recipes, for both cooking and baking. But if you don't have any in the pantry, or can't find any in the store, there are other flours you can use in its place. Bread flour and cake flour—on their own or mixed together—can substitute for all-purpose.

Thus, whole wheat flour is widely considered healthier. It's a good source of protein, fiber, and a variety of vitamins and minerals.

Substituting Plain Flour in Your Recipes

For each cup of all-purpose flour, simply use one cup of plain flour. Keep in mind that plain flour in the UK has a slightly lower protein content, which may affect the texture of your final baked goods.

Cornstarch has twice the thickening power of all-purpose flour, which means you'll want to use twice as much: For every 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, you'll want to use 2 tablespoons of flour.

Using Pancake Mix as Flour: Pancake mix can be used as a substitute for flour in recipes that call for flour, baking soda, and baking powder [3]. It is not suitable for recipes that require yeast. Cakes, cookies, frying batters, and pastries are more ideal for using pancake mix instead of flour.

Want to experiment with adding cornmeal to recipes that call for only all-purpose flour? Substitute a quarter of the AP flour with fine or medium cornmeal and see how it affects the baked goods' texture and flavor. (Since cornmeal is gluten-free, you don't want to substitute it 100%, or your cake might be dense.)

Practically any grain, nut, or seed can be turned into flour. Try exotic items such as quinoa, popcorn, acorns, and peas to the more traditional options like rice, wheat, oats, and barley. Fresh, whole wheat berries, rye berries, whole oats and the like can often be found at health food stores, sold in bulk.

If you need to substitute cornstarch to thicken liquid in a recipe that calls for ¼ cup (four tablespoons) flour, you only need two tablespoons cornstarch. If you're substituting flour for cornstarch to thicken the sauce in your recipe, substitute two tablespoons all-purpose flour for every one tablespoon cornstarch.

How to make your own flour? ›

Plain Flour

Also known as 'standard flour' and is perhaps the most widely used. It has no raising agent and is made from milled wheat. It's fine texture enables it to be able to hold more liquid which makes it great for cakes, cookies, and muffins because it creates a finer texture in the baked product.

You can also use cake flour to bring a more tender crumb to other sweets, like Chocolate Crinkle Cookies. If a recipe doesn't specify a certain type of flour, it's generally advisable to use all-purpose flour.

This means that with durum wheat, we'll get a nice bite on our breads and pasta, but not as much chew. That's why when combined with bread flour in pizza dough, 00 flour results in a chewy, crispy crust — the perfect duo! All this said, it's generally fine to substitute all-purpose flour for “00” flour.

Cake flour contains less protein than plain flour. So if you insist on using all-purpose flour, you can use 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons of plain flour plus 2 tablespoons of corn starch. In grams, for each 120g flour take out 15g flour and replace it with 15g cornstarch.

If a recipe simply says “use flour,” you can be reasonably sure it's asking for all purpose flour. It's used in just about everything, from fluffy biscuits to chewy bread and flaky pie crusts. All purpose flour can also be used as a coating for meats and veggies, and as a thickening agent in sauces, gravies, and soups.

Cake flour contains less protein than plain flour. So if you insist on using all-purpose flour, you can use 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons of plain flour plus 2 tablespoons of corn starch. In grams, for each 120g flour take out 15g flour and replace it with 15g cornstarch.

Yes, It is absolutely possible. Indeed a very yummy cake can be made without any flours. I have used Suji (Semolina) and mawa (khoa) to bake a cake with other simple ingredients. I bake this cake very often since it is a flour-less cake and everyone in my family also loves it.

You can use all-purpose flour as a 1:1 substitute for bread flour and vice-versa. For example, for 1 cup of bread flour, you can use 1 cup of all-purpose flour. Bread and pizza crust made with all-purpose flour may have a little less chew than those made with bread flour, but the results will still be good.

As long as the recipe you're making calls for leavening agents (as banana bread does), you can substitute self-rising for all-purpose flour. According to the baking pros at King Arthur Flour, look for recipes that use about ½-teaspoon of baking powder per cup of flour.