How many of you have tried a new recipe,followed it to to T only to have it taste terrible? Wouldn't it be nice to have a web site that list all the bad tasting recipes? Every recipe I try that calls for all purpose flour and not cake flour turns out bad. I bake from scatch a lot and always use softassilk cake flour. I'm sticking with cake flour from now on.

I use Pillsbury all purpose unbleached flour for all my homemade cakes and hardly ever do I run into a problem. The only way I have a problem with all purpose flour is if I mess up with my ingredients or overbeating and all also the temp. in the kitchen. Sometimes I come across cake recipes from the web site and they taste terrible and what I do is keep all bad tasting cakes in a binder and label it "BAD CAKES" so that I can either pass onto people or use as a cross referrence. I use softasilk cake flour quite often and it does make a different in the cake recipes, but I only use the cake flour if the recipe calls for it though. IMO it is a matter of preference.

If you want a light and fluffy texture to your cake, the cake flour is the way to go. However there are some types of cakes, such as the dense pound cake or the nut and fruit filled varieties that might work best with AP. Chocolate cake recipes, the better ones, use either all AP or half and half, if you want that fudgy texture.

I have posted this in the past, but my worst recipe/experience was the White Velvet cake recipe from The Cake Bible, dry like cornbread. No, I think cornbread actually had more moisture. I love that book for everything else, but some of the cake recipes need to be re-worked. My friend always asks whenever I make a cake if it is that recipe, like I would make it again.

They always remember the bad ones.