This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy for more information.

Have you ever gone in search of a “made from scratch” cake recipe, and then discovered the recipe that sounds the best calls for cake flour? But you don’t have any cake flour? And you don’t want to buy cake flour? There’s a simple DIY cake flour substitute you can try instead!

How To Make Your Own Cake Flour Substitute

To make your own cake flour substitute, you can use all purpose flour and cornstarch, two ingredients you probably already have in the cupboard. Because cake flour is lighter and finer than all purpose flour, the strategy is to replace a little bit of the all purpose flour with some cornstarch, thus making the all purpose flour a little bit finer and lighter.

To begin you’ll measure out 1 cup of your all purpose flour. Then, you’ll remove 2 tablespoons of the all purpose flour from the cup. You won’t need these 2 Tbl of flour that you’re removing and you can toss them back into your bag or canister of flour.

Next, you’ll replace those two missing tablespoons of flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch instead.

Once you’ve added the cornstarch to the remaining flour, then it’s time to start sifting! Taking the time to sift your homemade cake flour mixture will ensure that the cornstarch gets thoroughly mixed into the all purpose flour. You’ll want to sift the mixture four times. For many years I used to use these old school flour sifter cups with the squeeze handle but now I much prefer something like these fine mesh strainers as a flour sifter instead. It’s so much faster, especially when you need to do it four times.

Then measure your sifted mixture again to make sure you have an accurate cup of flour.

Here ‘s a few more additional measurements if you’d like to make larger batches of your DIY cake flour substitute too:

Start with 2 Cups Flour – take away 1/4 cup – add in 1/4 cup cornstarch
Start with 3 cups Flour – take away 6 Tbl – add in 6 Tbl cornstarch
Start with 4 cups Flour – take away 1/2 cup – add in 1/2 cup cornstarch

And there you have it . . . you made your own cake flour and you didn’t even have to run out to the store. It’s a wonderful thing when you can find a homemade solution right in your own pantry. 🙂

More DIY Baking Hacks:

• Make your own baking powder
• How to make bread flour from all purpose flour
• DIY Evaporated Milk