Interesting. I never have cake flour on hand, even though I use it often. It is rather expensive. I make my own with all purpose and cornstarch.
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Interesting! We don’t have anything like that here. But it’s not responsible for my baking fails. Maybe it’s just me!
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I wish I could visit more often!
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You don’t have corn starch?
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Yes but we don’t have flour with it in. Cakes are made with self raising flour. ETA the odd recipe does use plain flour.
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If you are a successful baker with English recipes, then it is the American recipe and/or ingredients.
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Oh. I meant if you don’t have cake flour, you can MAKE the equivilent, more or less, with the corn starch trick.
The reduced gluten by using corn starch allows the cake to rise more (since too much gluten will keep it overly dense). But the rising action in a cake recipe is usually the result of baking powder and/or baking soda, not the flour itself. The cake flour just makes it able to rise MORE.
I will keep persevering and see if I can figure them out.
I could make it, but if the recipes use all purpose flour I shouldn’t, right?
Hard to say. Most recipes are written to just use all purpose since that is what most people have/keep on hand. Usually “better” recipes will tell you to use cake flour…but then most people just end up using all purpose because that’s all they have.
So, if you are making a CAKE with a recipe that just says all-purpose, then you can try swapping out the all-purpose for cake flour. BUT, if British cake flour actually contains a leavener (to make it self-rising) it might not be a good idea to swap the all-purpose (plain) flour with cake flour…but INSTEAD use all-purpose with the corn starch.
ETA: Just did a quick search…cake flour in the UK is NOT THE SAME as cake flour in the US, so you should not use UK Cake flour instead of all purpose.
Well we don’t have cake flour at all so I’m not sure what you found. Just plain, self raising, bread flour. Maybe I’ll try the cornstarch.
Hmm. Interesting. It also says bleached flour is banned in the UK, but that’s pretty much all we use in the U.S. When I’ve tried to use unbleached flour, it does NOT turn out the same…at all!
I’m not sure I would do that with all cakes. Definitely wouldn’t swap when making pound cake.
You may have hit on my issue! Any solutions?
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Yeah. Self-raising is “cake flour” in the UK. Sorry.
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Good point. 
Years ago, when my son was allergic to wheat, we had to use spelt flour (which is a form of wheat, but basically non-allergenic for my son). Anyhow, we could not get bleached spelt flour. Everytime I tried to make a cake or bread or something with the spelt flour, it just never turned out the same nor tasted the same. Eventually I was able to find a bleached spelt flour, and suddenly everything starting tasting much better!
Unfortunately, I’m not sure what you can do to unbleached flour to make it behave/taste more like bleached. There probably is something you can do…but I don’t know what it is! 
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Can you buy all purpose flour the next time you are in the US and bring it home as a souvenir?
That’s a good question. I don’t know but I could find out. It will be a long wait though.
I did find someone who uses half corn starch, half plain flour for their cakes to turn out. Personally, that seems a little high in the corn starch content. But if 2 Tbsp isn’t enough, which it might not be in the UK, then perhaps try swapping out 1/4 cup for corn starch and see if that helps.
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