I have to give these a try when I have time. I love lemon! Thanks, Riverrat! I remember the picture from a different thread and it looked so good.

The common substitute is: For 1 c. cake flour use 1 cup minus 2 T SIFTED all-purpose flour. For that small amount I wouldn't alter it more than just slightly less than 1/3 c. -Grainlady

sally2 & lpinkmountain - sally2 - We've been doing a little traveling and it's the beginning of gardening season, so I haven't been spending much time on the computer. I should have added, if you mill your own flour, be sure to sift out any large chunks of bran from your flour when using it for fine cakes, like chiffon or angel food. And you must have a mill that will mill a very fine flour to use it for "cake" flour. A coarse grind of flour won't get the job done. I agree about avoiding bleached flour, but saying that, I brought home my 1 bag-for-the-year of White Lily flour I always purchase when we go to Tennessee (LOL). lpinkmountain - I've never tried wholegrain cake flour with barley flour, but I'm going to bet it's sweet taste would be an asset. Barley does have some gluten, although it's very low in gluten. Barley flour is an odd flour when you mill it yourself. It's really light and airy. You can mill 3/4 c. barley and it will innitially measure 1-1/2 c. of flour, but after several days storage, it compresses to 1 c. of flour. Barley is the exception to the "stir before measuring" rule. You need to tap the container a few times to settle the contents before measuring. I like to mill pearled barley into flour and use it in baked goods. Pearled barley has the bran removed so the flour is very starchy and soft to the touch. If you use barley in a yeast bread the crusts tend to harden after the bread is cooled and the crumb of the bread may be more crumbly, but nice and moist. Barley flour works well in lots of baking. It's one of those under-used flours, like rye. People only think of barley as a flour for a flatbread and there are LOTS of recipes using it for bannocks, pancakes (and other quick breads), pie crust... -Grainlady

AH, the art of cake making... For a tender cake you'll always benefit from choosing a low-protein flour like cake flour, pastry flour or Southern all-purpose. Not only the low-gluten (protein) level, but it's also a much smaller particle. The fine-grind helps produce better texture. Cake flour is typically bleached (something I avoid if at all possible), but King Arthur Flour has unbleached cake flour (see link below). But saying that, there ARE some benefits from using bleached cake flour... (source: CookWise by Shirley O. Corriher) -Bleached flour is slightly acid. -The acidity causes the cake to set slightly sooner in the oven, which produces cakes with a finer texture. -Rose Levy Beranbaum points out that lower-pH (more acid) batters produce a sweeter, more aromatic quality in cakes. -Clorination (bleaching) enhances the starches ability to absorb water. -Fat sticks to chlorinated starch but not to starch from the same wheat that has not been chlorinated. Since all the air bubbles are in the fat, this leads to a more even distribution of the bubbles, which produces a finer texture. Cake flour is milled from soft wheat varieties (low-protein varieties), while all-purpose flour is milled from a mixture of hard and soft wheat. Therefore, "all-purpose" flour is designed for all purposes. Just enough hard wheat flour to make a fairly good loaf of yeast bread, and enough soft flour to use for pastry, quick breads, etc. Unfortunately, it's actually not optimal for most things it's used for. Bread flour is milled from hard wheat varieties which have higher gluten/protein levels needed for high-rising yeast breads. I mill my own flour and use a 3:1 mixture of soft white wheat and oat groats or spelt and mill it very fine for a low gluten, wholegrain cake flour that will work for light cakes like chiffon and angel food. I compensate for using unbleached flour by increasing the sugar slightly. You will also find using a Southern All-Purpose flour like Martha White, White Lily, Gladiola, Red Band, will work better in recipes where you don't want a lot of gluten-development (cakes, pastry, biscuits, quick breads, etc...) than using National brands of all-purpose (Gold Medal, Pillsbury). If you normally use King Arthur or Robin Hood all-purpose, they have even more protein than National Brands of all-purpose and I'd avoid using them for baked goods you don't want a lot of gluten-development. If you MUST use these high-protein flours for things like pastry or biscuits, you can compensate by adding more fat, which coats the flour and prevents it from developing when the liquid is added. It's also beneficial to keep mixing to a minimum when making a cake to avoid over-developing the gluten. Mixing methods produce different kinds of cakes. If lightness is what you are looking for, take extreme care on the creaming. You want your butter to be between 65-70°F (take the temperature with an instant read thermometer). You may even want to chill the bowl and the beaters before starting the creaming to keep the temperature on the cold side. While one "expert" recommends creaming for 4 to 5 minutes, another for 6 to 10 minutes, it's a very important step. If you use a stand mixer it will take less time than if you use a hand-held mixer. Make sure your eggs are room temperature. The volume of the cake can be reduced just by adding cold eggs. It may sound old-fashioned and extra work, but sifting the dry ingredients together several times will help to evenly distribute the ingredients and improve the finished product. Don't forget to add the dry and liquid ingredients alternately. I like to add a lot of the dry ingredients in the first addition to the creamed ingredients because the fat will coat the flour to prevent gluten formation. Add about 1/3 of the liquid and mix, more flour, etc. Keep mixing to a bare minimum to prevent gluten-development. I use a Danish Dough Whisk for mixing batters of any kind to avoid over-developing the gluten. -Grainlady