Cake baking - which flour??

[knowabit]

I decided to buy some ingredients to bake cakes with my daughter. I looked at some basic sponge and fairy cake recipes, all of which call for plain flour, baking powder and bicarbe of soda. Whilst in the supermarket and looking at the flours i noticed that the self-raising flour was labelled up as ideal for baking cakes and biscuits. So my question is: should it be plain flour used with the added stuff or can you just use self raising flour on its own??? I'm all confused now???

[Rollo]

Ether would be fine for cakes.

[moonshadow]

Self raising flour is the best for sponge cake and you don't have to add anything.

[mumof3angels]

I have always used self-raising for all basic sponge cakes without the added baking powder etc.
This is a recipe which is basically the same as I've always done
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/vic toriasponge_13555.shtml
You could use it for fairy cakes too

[knowabit]

Thanks for all your replies xx

[pastafreak]

cake baking is a bit like chemistry-and needs to be exact for the best results. I always tend to follow the recipe...using the flour asked for,as sometimes a particular recipe may require more of the bicarb or baking soda needed for a good rise. This is not to say you can't substitute.....but there do try a recipe in its exact form first.

[maggiefoodie]

self raising flour has baking powder and a bit of salt - so the farthest i'd go with substitutions is if a recipe called for 250g self raising, i would sub 225g plain flour + 1/2 teaspoons baking powder + 1/2 teaspoon of salt. if a recipe called for plain flour, i would never attempt to sub self raising.