Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The different type of flour

I don't know if this sounds stupid, but I've been cracking my head with the differences between Top flour and Cake flour. Someone actually told me that they are the same when I just started my baking journey, but I always has this "insecure feeling" that they are different.

This kept me pondering from the first day I started baking, because I always thought: If they are the same thing, why do PrimaFlour has these 2 flour packed separately? Although, I've always tried my best to get Cake flour since many recipes specially indicated that, sometimes I do meet with some difficulties since the Phoon Huat near my place doesn't cater Cake flour at all. One of the auntie I met in Phoon Huat told me that Top flour = Cake flour and is relatively cheaper, so sometimes if I really couldn't get Cake flour, I go for Top flour.

After several attempts with Top flour, I realised that the texture didn't came out to be what I expected since most of the time, I am always baking sponge cake. I was like so confused for the whole of 3 months till today, I decided to do a small research (I know it's kind of late but I always forget about this thing!) Finally, I've got my answer!


Cake Flour is a superb quality, soft-as-silk flour. It has excellent tolerance to a high amount of butter and sugar, resulting in cakes of good volume. This flour is best used for baking sponge cakes and very rich cakes like pound cakes.

Top Flour is an extra-fine quality flour to give exceptionally smooth and fine texture for your baking needs. It is especially ideal for baking very fine cakes; such as chiffon cakes, swiss rolls, crepes, cake doughnuts and butter cookies.
Extracted from PrimaFlour Website

Now, I know when do I use Top flour and when I use cake flour. :)

3 comments:

Aimei said...

Hey thanks for the info Mrs Kwok! I never really pondered about its uses...I used to use them interchangebly...I thought that top flour is a slightly higher grade than cake flour. Thus, I would use top flour for chiffon if I have it. :)

Happy Mrs Kwok said...

Hee~! It was indicated that Top flour works best for Chiffon cake. Actually also quite confusing to me leh. Cause they said Cake flour has the is the as-soft-as-silk flour then why is it that Top flour works better for Chiffon?

Oh my, oh my~ Why do I keep having questions :P 問題女人阿~ Hahaha

zita said...

What can you substitute if you cannot find Top Flour?