If the recipe says 1 cup flour, sifted, measure first, then sift. If the recipe says 1 cup sifted flour, sift first, then measure.

Lori :D

Thanks for answering so quickly. :- )

One cup of flour sifted...measure and sift. One cup of sifted flour...sift and measure. I guess it would depend on how the recipe is written. That's my take on it. I was a sifter when called for in a recipe. After feed back from here and other places I don't sift anymore. I just fluff the flour before measuring and proceed with the recipe. No problems or failed recipes so far.

what's baking or cooking tonight?

David

LOL! Lori beat me to it.

David

Great minds think alike, my friend!

Lori ;)

I just stir the flour in the canister with a knife. Then I measure it for a cup of sifted flour. I have not actually sifted flour through a sieve or sifter in decades.

Recipes almost always want flour measured after sifting. But I almost never sift flour. I stir it a bit to fluff it up, and if I don't weigh it, I scoop it carefully so as not to pack it down or spoon it into the measuring cup.

I sift confectioners sugar when using it for icing if it is at all clumped but I don't find that my flour clumps at all.

I do it for cakes, but that's about it. Don't know why that is, it just is, LOL. Generally, I'm much more exacting with cakes than with anything else. And when I do, I do it the way Lakeguy and Lorijean say.

I have a Betty Crocker book as far back as 1961 that says it's optional but not necessary. I also have "Baking with Julia." Since she's so in the forefront of my mind right now, I'll have to look in there and see if she has an opinion.

Well, paraphrased, Julia agrees with all of us! She says that all purpose and bread flours don't need sifting, but that cake flour should be. She also has the same rule regarding sifted flour vs. flour sifted.

She suggests that if your primary goal in sifting is to combine dry ingredients with the flour, this is easily accomplished with a whisk.

Scott, as one of the "non-sifters", I'm glad Julia agrees with me. Or I agree with her. Or something.

Anyway, I never sift and seem to manage to make baked goods regularly that are well received.

Annie

I, too, gave up sifting years ago. I just run a whisk through the dry ingredients to mix them, as needed. Works fine. Part of the reason is that today's products are much improved over what our mothers and grandmothers had to work with.

My mother never sifted, thus, I never sift. Never have yet in all my cooking experience and I've never wished I had! Non-sifters of the world, UNITE!

Recipes almost always want flour measured after sifting.

Interesting, I don't think I've ever seen a recipe call for sifted flour. Flour, sifted, yes. Sifted flour would be pretty annoying unless they gave you the weight and you could do it right into a bowl.

BUT....I do sift when making angel food cake....3 times like the recipe says!
Linda C