Hi guys

I have a minor but annoying problem.
I like to bake cakes. You know victoria sandwhich etc, but the self raising flour that I have found in the stores has salt added as well raising agents so I want to use all purpose and add my own raising agents.

How much baking powder and or baking soda do I put in to each cup of all purpose flour?
The only recipes I have found online have flopped badly.
Although we have had some nice trifles made with the results as the base.

Please can someone put me straight.

One website I found said 1-1/4 (i.e., 1.25) teaspoons of baking powder to every cup of all-purpose flour.

Here's a recipe for a Quick Chocolate Layer Cake that I've made successfully in South Africa, Canada, the USA and Australia. It comes from Cook and Enjoy It S.J.A. de Villiers. Rob4BC may recognize the title as Kook en Geniet.

4 eggs
1-1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 cup milk
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder (by experimentation I found that 4 teaspoons worked better)
1/4 teaspoon salt (but I guess you do not want that)
3 tablespoons cocoa (or, for plain cake, cornflour)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence (vanilla extract in Canada)

1. Beat the eggs thoroughly, gradually adding the sugar. Beat until very light.
   
   
2. Melt the butter in the milk to make a thin, warm liquid.
   
   
3. Sift the flour with the baking powder, cocoa and salt, and then sift this into the egg mixture. Fold it in carefully.
   
   
4. At this stage, ensure that the oven temperature is correct. Then add the warm butter mixture to the first mixture and mix quickly.
   
   
5. Pour the batter into 2 greased layer cake tins, about 22 cm (9 inches) in diameter.
   
   
6. Place immediately in a medium oven at 180 - 190 deg C (350 - 375 deg F) for 25 to 30 minutes. Insert a skewer or steel knitting needle into the cake and, if no batter adheres to it and the edges of the cake shrink away from the sides of the tin, the cake is done.
   
   
7. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes, and turn out on a wire cooler. When completely cooled, sandwich together with any desired filling.

My note: By experimentation, I have found that this recipe makes 3 dozen cup cakes, baked for more or less 20 minutes.

My experience has been that 2 teaspoons of baking powder to every cup of flour works well.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you...f_rising_flour

Hey Judy

Thanks for the help and the recipe. I wil give it a try and let you know how I get on.

Its not that I don't use salt in cooking, its just that most things here have a lot of salt added, and I would rather keep it to a minimum.

You can use cream of tartar in place of the salt.

500 gm. plain flour + 20 ml. cream of tartar + 10 ml. bicarbonate of soda


The other thing to watch out for cooking here is that the gluten contents of the different flours here are allegedly different to the UK, so some experimentation might be needed to get things to rise the same. ie bread and all purpose flours have high gluten contents and wont work the same as pastry flours.

I would think that for home made self raising to stand a chance you would be best starting off with a soft cake flour rather than GP.

Thank you Iaink

for so much useful info. I never knew that flour was so complicated.

You are regular Jamie Oliver.

First time I read your post, I swear I read RAISIN AGENTS! I was even beginning to think: "what the hell are raisin agents?!" I guess it's a bit lateish here...

Sorry, can't help with the cooking issue. I'm a walking disaster constantly happening in the kitchen...

Good luck!
LHK

Hi Pen, I had the same problem and ended up using SR successfully, but my uncle who lives here now used to live in the interior of BC, told me that the amount you need to use varies depending how near sea level you are,so I wasn't using enough and all my cakes were like,well, pancakes. At sea level you need more, I think. It's very scientific I did experiment but someone bought me a bag of SR to shut me up and I've been fine ever since