Cake Flour and Queen Guinivere Flour Thread

[BakerAunt]

Queen Guinivere Cake Flour

Why can I no longer find Queen Guinivere cake flour. It is the best I have ever used and do not get the same great results with the King Arthur cake flour. I hope to see it's return soon.
posted by: rjdean528 on August 15, 2014 at 11:51 am in General discussions

reply by: KAF Customer Support on August 15, 2014 at 12:38 pm
rjdean528,
As of fairly recently, we have chosen to discontinue the Queen Guinevere Cake Flour and it is no longer available. A primary reason behind this decision is that this was the only flour KAF offered which was bleached--an industry standard practice for that type of flour. Our preference is to offer only unbleached flour to our customers and community. We are sorry to learn that this will leave you without a product you'd come to love using, and I will be happy to share your feedback with our Merchandising Team for their future consideration.

If you have any questions about using or adapting our Unbleached Cake Flour, please feel encouraged to give our friendly Baking Specialists a call at 855-371-2253. Happy baking!
Jesse@KAF

reply by: KIDPIZZA on August 15, 2014 at 12:59 pm
RJDEAN:
Good morning. There are those who will propose to you that you can make your own cake flour by mixing two flours together...yes you can get your accepted protein level that you chose for your baked product.
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The problem is this maneuver does not have the moisture absorbing ability as does "CAKE FLOUR". CAKE FLOUR is milled to handle more sugar & moisture that the other flours cannot thru the use of particular bleaching & other chemicals. This flour is designed to handle the butter (FAT) in its best optimum way for your baked product..
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As you know, there are two brands of cake flour in the super markets, one is called "SOFT AS SILK" The other right now I cannot remember its name. I have used both & I do not think that one any better than the other.
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If you expect to end up with a cake that you can slice up with a feather than employ a "CAKE FLOUR" & not one that is homemade.
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I hope this info helps you to make the best decision for yourself.
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Enjoy the rest of the day my friend.
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~KIDPIZZA.

reply by: bakeraunt on August 15, 2014 at 1:58 pm
Here's a recent thread that discusses what other brands of cake flour people are using:
http://community.kingarthurflour.com/content/what-kind-cake-flour-do-you...
[uploader's note: no longer exists?]

reply by: aaronatthedoublef on August 15, 2014 at 9:28 pm
Yes, I started that post when I noticed Queen Guinevere was no longer available.
I too am very disappointed that KAF decided to jettison Queen G. It has been a staple in my pantry for years now. I have about nine pounds left and that should last me about three months.
I know it's bleached but it works for me and the KAF cake flour blend doesn't work right in my recipes. So I guess I will have to find something new.

reply by: Antilope on August 15, 2014 at 9:50 pm
There are three main brands of bleached cake flour still generally available:
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Pillsbury Softasilk Bleached Cake Flour
Swan's Down Bleached Cake Flour
Presto Self-Rising Bleached Cake Flour. (with baking powder and salt added)

reply by: Maryarias on August 20, 2014 at 8:47 am
I have tried making this bleached cake flour but something went wrong and it was not good in taste.

reply by: Mike Nolan on August 20, 2014 at 6:36 pm
Haven't tried this yet, but it sounds interesting: kate flour (heat-treated flour)
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Kate Flour

reply by: Antilope on August 20, 2014 at 9:05 pm
This sounds as interesting and revolutionary as the tangzhong technique for bread. I can see the look on my wife's face when I start microwaving dry flour. ;-). I have to try this, thanks for posting the link.
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Here's a condensed version of what "Kate Flour" is:
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I haven't tried this yet, but it appears to be very interesting. It involves making cake flour from unbleached all purpose flour.
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For those that are concerned about bleached cake flour and the chemicals used to create it, there appears to be an alternative.
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Dry, unbleached all purpose flour is heated to 266-F (130C) in a microwave, cooled to room temperature and mixed 1/8 by weight with cornstarch making a homemade unbleached cake flour with the characteristics of bleached cake flour.
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In Europe and Australia bleached flour was banned in 2007. People there missed bleached cake flour.
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Someone developed a homemade replacement for bleached cake flour by heating unbleached all purpose flour in a microwave to 266-F (130C) and allowing it to cool to room temperature. It is then mixed 1/8 by weight with cornstarch to lower the gluten content.
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Heating dries out the flour and ruptures the surface of the flour starch molecules, changing its characteristics to that more like bleached cake flour. In cooling, the flour re-absorbs its moisture content from the air, but retains good cake baking qualities it obtained from heating in the microwave.
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Adding the cornstarch lowers the gluten content of the all purpose flour to that more like a cake flour.
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This homemade cake flour is called "Kate Flour", named for the person that developed it.
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Here is a link to the blog of the person that created it and also the recipe for making the homemade cake flour from unbleached all purpose flour:
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Kate Flour

reply by: frick on August 22, 2014 at 2:12 pm
I guess there's more than one way to skin a cat. Let us know your results and opinion if you try it. I'm one of those who aren't bothered by bleached cake flour enough to care, but hat is in no way a criticism of those who do.

reply by: aaronatthedoublef on August 25, 2014 at 12:44 pm
Wow, cool....
Microwaving flour takes less time it seems but using a regular oven takes less intervention. Unfortunately, we don't have a cold oven so I'm not sure I could completely duplicate this.
Also note, though, that baking powders make a difference and kate flour works better with the UK variant than the US version.

reply by: aaronatthedoublef on August 25, 2014 at 12:59 pm
What is wrong with bleached flour?
Why did the EU ban it?
Why did KAF discontinue it?
Thanks

reply by: Antilope on August 25, 2014 at 1:14 pm
I'm more of a bread baker than a dessert maker. I usually just use cake flour to mix with all-purpose flour to make a lower gluten flour for biscuits, cornbread, pancakes, waffles, etc. Bleached flour doesn't bother me, but if I can't find any this looks like a good alternative.

reply by: Mike Nolan on August 25, 2014 at 1:32 pm
It is the EU's mission in life to protect Europeans from anything harmful.
Next I expect them to ban hydrogen dioxide, because it leads to many deaths every year.

reply by: Mike Nolan on August 25, 2014 at 1:34 pm
Note for the non-chemists, hydrogen dioxide is H2O, more commonly known as water. 🙂

reply by: aaronatthedoublef on August 25, 2014 at 1:43 pm
I think we're all (including KAF) thinking about this in the wrong way.
Sure things can be bleached by using a bleaching agent (like chlorine bleach) but things can also be bleached by heat treating them which is really what is being done when flour is microwaved or heated in an oven.

reply by: Mike Nolan on August 25, 2014 at 1:58 pm
As I recall, originally flour was bleached by long term exposure to sunlight and oxygen.
It might be difficult to do that or heat treatment on a production scale these days, and from what I've seen there are some differences between 'kate flour' and bleached cake flour.
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The point to bleaching is not just to whiten the product, it is also to weaken the flour. Whether heat treatments accomplish that sufficiently is something that might be a job for scientists to investigate, although from what I can tell the academic community doesn't feel that's worth researching.

reply by: weedsnstitches on August 25, 2014 at 9:26 pm
If you are in the south, you can get Wondra which is a cake flour. Or use White Lily or Martha White which is soft but not as soft as Wondra. I know White Lily and Martha White are bleached.....
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But don't use WL or MW for bread as they don't hold together unless you add a lot of gluten. They do a great job for biscuits though. Or anything else you want tender like cookies.

reply by: spud14901 on August 26, 2014 at 7:15 am
I think you should let the customer decide. If you said you were not selling enough of it to make a profit, it is one thing. I don't need somebody (big brother) telling me what to buy or not to by. If you don't want to use it at KA that is fine but to take away a product that customers like and support is another.

King Arthur is not the only quality product on the market. I am really aggravated over this and I am sure I am not alone. I had an order in my cart that I did not place because of this and it even had free shipping.

reply by: aaronatthedoublef on August 27, 2014 at 11:08 am
Mike,
Thanks. I guess I really am not sure what the big deal about bleaching flour is. I understand people not wanting to consume chlorine but using a bleaching agent like chlorine is not the only way to bleach flour. Of course other ways may not be commercially viable as you point out.

Another question is, has KAF actually discontinued Queen G flour? It still shows up here http://www.kingarthurflour.com/professional/flours.html under professional flours as being available through distributors in 50 lb. bags.
Thanks

reply by: swirth on August 27, 2014 at 12:12 pm
For the best answer, Aaron, click the Contact button at the top left, right next to the toll-free #, and ask the folks at KAF if you can get the 50# bags...some folks thru the years here have been lucky to find a business near them where they could have a 50# bag of various flours delivered. Maybe you could work something out. Freeze the flour in gallon freezer zipper bags and it will be fine for a long time.

reply by: aaronatthedoublef on August 27, 2014 at 3:01 pm
Thanks Swirth. I definitely know people who would buy it for me. Maybe I could even start a side business reselling it to those of us who miss it!

reply by: KitchenBarbarian aka Zen on August 30, 2014 at 6:58 pm
Well turn your back for 2 or 3 weeks and see what happens! I'm finally in a place where I might be able to get access to Queen Guinevere in 50 lb. bags and what do they do - stop making it!
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I'm very sorry, but the KAF unbleached cake flour is awful stuff. You'd do better to stick with Pillsbury or GM "regular" flour, by far. I've tried it. It is execrable. It is NOT cake flour. Everyone I know who has tried it has hated it.
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The Winco here carries cake flour in bulk for a pretty reasonable price, given what a 2 lb box of Swansoft or one of the others usually costs me (over $2 per pound, it's like 80c in the bulk bin). It cannot possibly be worse than KAF unbleached faux-cake flour.
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If you can get it, White Lily all purpose flour (NOT the self-rising version) makes a fairly good substitute for cake flour. And btw, WL specifically makes a bread flour - so you can make bread with White Lily flour, it just needs to be the right sort.
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Otherwise, stick with Pillsbury or GM regular "all-purpose" flour and replace a small amount by weight with cornflour. It also is not optimal, but it's a big improvement over plain AP or KAF's unbleached not-really cake flour.
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BTW they have had heat-treated cake flours in the EU for some time that are good substitutes for the bleached flours they've replaced. The problem has been that they have only been available by the pallet load to large industry-style bakeries - regular folks have not had access. Hence, "Kate flour".
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I considered trying Kate flour as part of my cake-recipe testing project - but I had to drop that as I came to realize I just don't have the energy any more. Stupid health!
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I will recommend that you NOT try it in the microwave however - the fact that you need to stir it up makes the chances of flashover in the microwave higher than I am comfortable with. By that I mean the flour may explode inside your microwave (and in fact that did happen at least once to Kate, if you read her blog in detail). I'd just rather ... not.
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We are now at 4500 feet and I have yet to have the nerve to try baking anything more than a pizza so far. It may be awhile before I can bring myself to risk a bread or cake failure, LOL!

reply by: cwcdesign on August 30, 2014 at 7:13 pm
Zen, if you go to "Professional Flours," you'll see it's still available. I checked after I posted on the cake flour thread.

reply by: KitchenBarbarian aka Zen on August 30, 2014 at 8:18 pm
Oh, so it's only in the small consumer packaging they've stopped making it?
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You know I never see that, HAVE never seen it, in a brick-and-mortar store. And I won't buy flour by mail because shipping is prohibitively expensive. I imagine other people probably feel the same. So I would guess they didn't sell a lot of those little bags via mail order, and maybe even less to retailers for resale, so ... I can see stopping packaging it that way because of issues of economy of scale that would be lacking.
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But it seems to me the better solution would have been to see it more widely distributed amongst brick-and-mortar retailers. But then maybe that would put them in head-to-head competition with ginormous flour sellers like Pillsbury and whoever ultimately owns them. So maybe that's not so do-able either.
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Has anyone ever seen QG in a store on a shelf?

reply by: frick on August 30, 2014 at 10:43 pm
Not I. Interesting that you find the unbleached KAF to be execrable. Glad I didn't get it, and for the same reason I hate ordering flour by mail. It's hard these days to put together an order large enough to get free shipping. I have always used Swan's Down or Softasilk happily enough. I would be happier if I could find it in larger quantities and may try to borrow the Food Warehouse (or whatever it's called) card & buy a big bag. 50 pounds is a lot, though. I have a hard enough time storing 50# of bread flour plus all the other types.
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I tried the subbing in cornstarch once, according to RLBeranbaum's version, for economy's sake. I wasn't impressed.

reply by: KitchenBarbarian aka Zen on August 31, 2014 at 12:24 am
I got a box of it at I think Whole Foods - or something like that. I used it in a recipe that called for regular AP flour. It was the WORST cake I've made in quite a long while. It was dense and sort of grainy. I didn't like it AT ALL. It cost just as much as the regular 2lb boxes of cake flour, too - unless it cost more. It's been awhile and my memory is not that great. It definitely wasn't any less, and the results were underwhelming, IMO.
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I told the boychild that we were definitely getting a deep freezer when we got here. I don't have it yet - but unless I get over my fear of high altitude baking, there really isn't much need for it, LOL!
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One good thing - we have a GAS OVEN! I LOVE IT! I grew up cooking on an electric stove but they don't make 'em like they used to - and I have a MUCH easier time adjusting heat on a gas range than any electric range I've ever been faced with. The first time I ever used a gas stove, I knew I wanted to be cookin' with gas whenever possible!
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re the cornstarch trick - there's a trick to the trick. I talked about it in the last posting on this thread:
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Cake flour substitution discussion
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Basically, decide how much a cup of cake flour SHOULD weigh (you can figure this from the side panel of any real cake flour, like Softasilk or whatever - it's for 1/4c as 1 serving usually so just multiply that by 4).
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Then I put 2 T of corn starch in a bowl and add flour until it "weighs the same" as 1 c of cake flour..
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Or the down and dirty method is just to use 3/4c of flour plus 2 T of corn starch (and SIFT SIFT SIFT in either case).

reply by: weedsnstitches on August 31, 2014 at 2:37 pm
Sorry...I totally forgot about the White Lily Bread flour. Probably because they add barley to it and I totally avoid any flour that has barley in it. And that is why, Bread flour is better than just regular flour for making bread. It has just a tiny bit of barley in it to give it more ability to develop the gluten strands to hold the bread together better.
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Or at least that is what I remember of the explanation that was given to me as to why most flours have barley in them. And all bread flours have barley in them.

reply by: Antilope on August 31, 2014 at 3:58 pm
Most white flour (made from wheat) has malted barley flour added as a yeast food.
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King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour - Label
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INGREDIENTS: UNBLEACHED HARD WHEAT FLOUR,
MALTED BARLEY FLOUR (A NATURAL YEAST FOOD),
NIACIN (A B VITAMIN), REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN
MONONITRATE (VITAMIN B1), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN
B2), FOLIC ACID (A B VITAMIN)
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http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop-img/labels/1407163565575.pdf
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King Arthur 100% Organic Unbleached All-Purpose Flour - Label
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INGREDIENTS: CERTIFIED 100% ORGANIC WHEAT FLOUR, 100%
ORGANIC MALTED BARLEY FLOuR.
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http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop-img/labels/1407163781175.pdf
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King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour - Label
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INGREDIENTS: UNBLEACHED HARD SPRING WHEAT ENRICHED
FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN (A B VITAMIN), REDUCED
IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE (VITAMIN B1), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN
B2), FOLIC ACID (A B VITAMIN).
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http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop-img/labels/1407163665719.pdf
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King Arthur 100% Organic Unbleached Bread Flour - Label
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INGREDIENTS: CERTIFIED 100% ORGANIC WHEAT FLOUR, 100%
ORGANIC MALTED BARLEY FLOUR.
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http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop-img/labels/1407163543174.pdf
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Gold Medal All Purpose Flour - label
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INGREDIENTS: WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR,
NIACIN (A B VITAMIN), IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE
(VITAMIN B1), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), FLOIC ACID (A B VITAMIN).
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http://www.lukerymarz.com/blog/images/noodle/allPurposeData.jpg
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Pillsbury Best All Purpose Flour - label
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INGREDIENTS: UNBLEACED WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR (IMPROVES YEAST BAKING), NIACIN, IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FLOIC ACID.
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http://www.amazon.com/Pillsbury-Purpose-Unbleached-Flour-Pound/dp/B004ZX...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61nwqH-UvmL._SL1500_.jpg

reply by: frick on August 31, 2014 at 5:39 pm
weedsnstitches, I'm curious. Why do you avoid flours with barley in them?

reply by: aaronatthedoublef on September 03, 2014 at 4:31 pm
I used to be able to get QG in stores until the boxes of the unbleached came out which is when I began mail-ordering it. I would usually wait until there was a free-shipping and then stock up. That is when I buy my KAF flours (except for bread and WWW).

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