Self-Raising Flour

Our answer

Nigella tends not to use self-raising flour in her more recent books as she doesn't bother to keep both plain (all-purpose) and self-raising flour. Partly as keeping just one type of flour saves on storage space and partly as if you don't use self-raising flour regularly then it will lose its raising power over time.

It is fairly easy to make your own self-raising flour. Just add 2 teaspoons of baking powder for each 150g/6oz/1 cup plain flour. Sift the flour and baking powder together into a bowl before using, to make sure the baking powder is thoroughly distributed (or you can put both ingredients into a bowl and whisk them together). If you are baking with cocoa, yogurt or buttermilk then add 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) as well as the baking powder as generally these ingredients need a little extra leavening boost.

Make sure that your baking powder has not passed its "use by" or "best before" date as baking powder also has a finite life and if it is old you may find that your cakes don't rise.

In the US self-rising flour also contains added salt - around 1/2 teaspoon per cup.