Can You Make Bread With Cake Flour? | Soft Bread When Strong Flour Is Missing

Yes, you can bake yeast bread with cake flour, but the dough needs extra care and tweaks for good rise and structure.

Running out of bread flour right before mixing dough happens to plenty of home bakers. A bag of cake flour may be the only white flour left in the cupboard, and throwing it away feels wasteful. The good news is that you can still bake bread with it, as long as you know what changes to expect and how to balance them.

This guide walks through what cake flour does in bread dough, the trade offs you face, and simple adjustments that bring you closer to the result you want. By the time your oven is hot, you will know when cake flour works, when it does not, and how to rescue a batch that feels weak or sticky.

Why Bakers Use Cake Flour For Bread In A Pinch

Cake flour is milled from softer wheat and has less protein than bread flour. Less protein means less gluten, so the dough stretches less and traps fewer gas bubbles from yeast. That sounds like bad news for bread, but it also brings some perks.

Quick Answer For Busy Bakers

When you use cake flour in bread dough, you can expect a thin crust, fine crumb, and gentle chew. The loaf often stays pale and tears more easily, yet it can taste tender and pleasant for sandwich bread, dinner rolls, or enriched loaves with milk, eggs, or butter.

If you want tall sourdough with a crackling crust and strong chew, cake flour is not the right choice. If you want soft slices for toast or French toast and you are willing to treat the dough gently, cake flour can step in for a night.

Making Bread With Cake Flour At Home

To understand how to work with cake flour in bread recipes, it helps to compare its protein range to other flours in your pantry. Protein numbers are usually listed on baking sites or nutrition labels and give a good first hint about how a dough will behave.

Protein And Gluten In Different Flours

The baking team at King Arthur Baking notes that their bread flour sits around 12.7 percent protein, while the same brand of all purpose flour is closer to 11.7 percent. Both values give enough gluten forming power for tall loaves and chewy crumb.

Writers at Serious Eats place cake flour at roughly 7 to 8 percent protein, pastry flour a bit higher, and bread flour at 12 to 14 percent. That gap shows why dough made only with cake flour feels softer and less elastic.

Bob’s Red Mill explains that cake flour is also ground extra fine, which helps it absorb more water and produce a very tender texture in cakes. That same trait makes bread dough sticky and delicate when cake flour is the main ingredient.

Nutrition databases such as USDA FoodData Central show that standard enriched wheat flour can carry around 10 to 11.5 percent protein, depending on the product. That range mirrors what most all purpose flours offer in stores.

How Texture Changes In Cake Flour Bread

In a typical lean bread dough baked with bread flour, gluten strands form a strong web that traps gas and lets the loaf spring high. With cake flour, that web is thinner. The loaf may rise in the pan, yet it often spreads sideways and settles once it cools.

The crumb usually looks tight and small bubbled, closer to sandwich bread than rustic boule. The crust browns less because the dough holds more moisture and the protein level is lower. If you cut the loaf while warm, slices can stretch and feel a bit gummy.

These changes are not flaws by default. They simply suit certain styles better than others. The trick is matching the flour to the bread style and balancing the dough to keep it easy to handle.

Flour Types, Protein Levels, And Bread Results

Flour Type	Typical Protein Range	Expected Bread Texture
Cake Flour	5–8%	Very soft crumb, low rise, fragile crust
Pastry Flour	8–9%	Soft crumb, modest rise
All Purpose Flour	10–12%	Balanced chew and tenderness, dependable rise
Bread Flour	12–14%	Chewy crumb, tall rise, crisp crust
High Gluten Flour	14–16%	Very chewy, ideal for bagels and pizza
Whole Wheat Flour	13–15%	Nutty flavor, dense crumb, strong dough
00 Pizza Flour	11–12.5%	Chewy yet tender pizza and flatbreads

Can You Make Bread With Cake Flour? Common Problems And Fixes

Once you know how cake flour behaves, the next step is taming the dough. Two areas matter most here: how much water you use and how you mix and ferment the dough.

Adjusting Hydration And Ingredients

Cake flour absorbs water in a different way from bread flour. If you swap it cup for cup into a standard recipe, the dough can slump and feel sticky, even when it looks dry at first. A simple fix is to hold back about ten percent of the water at the start, then add more only if the dough feels stiff or dry after mixing.

Because cake flour forms less gluten, many bakers like to blend it with stronger flour. A half and half mix of cake flour and bread flour still lowers protein yet keeps enough strength for a decent rise. King Arthur Baking and other test kitchens often show blends like this when they describe how protein levels shift dough behavior.

Enriched doughs with sugar, milk, and fat already slow gluten development, so using cake flour in them compounds that effect. If you are making cinnamon rolls or brioche style bread with cake flour, cut back a little on sugar and fat or increase mixing time so the dough still holds together.

Techniques That Help Weak Dough

Gentle technique matters more when the flour is weak. A few practical habits keep cake flour dough from collapsing:

• Mix just to the point where the dough looks smooth and elastic, without beating extra air into it.
• Use short rest periods, such as ten minute pauses between short kneading sessions, to let gluten relax and strengthen without tearing.
• Shape loaves tightly so the dough has surface tension, then place them in pans that give some side walls.
• Proof only until the dough rises about one finger above the pan, since over proofed cake flour dough deflates easily.

During baking, a well preheated oven and added steam during the first ten minutes can help thin dough hold shape. A heavy pan or baking stone stores heat and brings better oven spring, even when the gluten network is modest.

Simple Example Formula Using Cake Flour

Here is a basic pan bread formula that uses only cake flour. It will not taste like chewy artisan bread, but it gives soft slices that toast nicely:

• 300 g cake flour
• 6 g fine salt
• 12 g sugar
• 6 g instant yeast
• 210–225 g warm water
• 20 g neutral oil or melted butter

Mix dry ingredients, add water and fat, and knead until smooth. Let rise until doubled, shape into a loaf pan, let rise until slightly above the rim, then bake at 190°C until the crust is golden and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

Adjustments When Swapping Cake Flour Into Bread

Problem	Common Cause	Practical Fix
Loaf spreads and looks flat	Protein too low for free form baking	Bake in a pan or blend cake flour with stronger flour
Texture feels gummy	Dough too wet or under baked	Hold back water and bake a little longer
Crumb is dense and tight	Under proofing or dough handling that degasses too much	Give dough more time to rise and handle it gently
Crust stays pale	Low protein and high moisture	Extend bake time and finish with a short blast at higher heat
Dough tears while shaping	Gluten network too weak	Use rest periods between shaping steps and avoid over stretching
Loaf dries out fast	Fine crumb and thin crust	Store in a bag after cooling and use for toast or French toast quickly
Flavor tastes bland	Short fermentation time	Add a preferment or extend the first rise in the fridge overnight

Best Bread Styles For Cake Flour

Some bread styles suit cake flour far better than others. In general, softer, smaller loaves do well, while tall, lean loaves call for at least some stronger flour.

Sandwich Loaves And Pull Apart Rolls

Cake flour can shine in standard sandwich bread or pull apart dinner rolls. These formulas often include milk, sugar, and fat, which match the gentle crumb that cake flour creates. The lower protein level helps you avoid tough crust on small rolls.

If your favorite sandwich bread uses all purpose flour, you can replace one third to one half of it with cake flour. Keep the hydration similar at first and adjust in later bakes once you see how the dough feels. Many test kitchens, including writers at Serious Eats, recommend this kind of gradual adjustment whenever you change flour type.

Flatbreads And Thin Crust Styles

Another good match for cake flour is flatbread. Pita, skillet breads, and thin crust pan breads do not need towering structure. A soft, flexible dough works in their favor, and cake flour can supply that when combined with strong mixing and brief fermentation.

If you like extra soft naan or skillet bread, using half cake flour and half bread flour can give a tender bite without losing too much stretch. Just keep an eye on hydration so the dough stays workable on a floured counter.

When Cake Flour Is A Poor Choice

There are times when cake flour simply will not give the bread you want, no matter how carefully you treat the dough. In those cases, wait until you can buy bread flour or at least a strong all purpose flour.

High Hydration Rustic Loaves

Country style loaves with open crumb and chewy crust rely on strong gluten chains. High water levels and long fermentation push the dough to its limits. Low protein flour breaks down in that setting, so cake flour versions of these breads usually spread into pancakes and bake up dense.

Classic sourdough boules, ciabatta, and high hydration baguettes belong in this group. For them, find flour closer to the 12 to 14 percent protein range described by King Arthur and other baking references.

Bagels, Pizza, And Other Chewy Breads

Bagels, New York style pizza, and pretzels depend on high protein flour, often in the high gluten range. Their dense crumb and long boiling or baking times need sturdy dough. Cake flour lacks that strength and turns these formulas into soft rolls instead.

If you crave chew, keep cake flour for cakes and cookies and reach for bread flour or high gluten flour instead. Your teeth will thank you.

So, Should You Bake Bread With Cake Flour?

You now know that the answer to the original question is yes, with clear limits. Cake flour can save a baking day when stronger flour runs out, mainly for soft sandwich loaves, rolls, and flatbreads baked in pans. It will never replace bread flour in tall sourdough or bagels, yet it earns a place as a helpful backup.

The next time you are holding a bag of cake flour and wondering whether it belongs in your bread dough, think about the style of loaf you want, blend flours when you can, trim the water a little, and treat the dough gently. With those habits in place, cake flour bread can leave your kitchen smelling just as good as any other loaf.