Do You Really Need to Sift Your Flour?

I’ll admit it: Every time a recipe demands that I sift an ingredient like all-purpose flour, I raise my eyebrows. Do I really have to break out an extra tool that’s notoriously tricky to clean? 

The truth is, you can often ignore this step, which calls to push a dry ingredient through a sifter or fine-mesh sieve to get rid of lumps, without impacting the texture and flavor of your baked goods. There are exceptions, however. No one wants to deal with clumpy icing or bite into a bitter ball of dry cocoa powder.

Here’s why recipes sometimes call to sift dry ingredients, and when it’s truly necessary. 

What does sifting do? 

Prior to modern milling processes, flour and other ground ingredients could contain objects like rocks or bugs that needed to be sifted out. That’s why you’ll often see “sifted flour” in older recipes. With modern milling and food safety regulations, sifting has become less critical. In fact, most flours you buy at the grocery store are pre-sifted. 

These days, sifting is primarily done for two reasons: to zap away any lumps, and to aerate your dry ingredients. The latter is particularly important when you’re making a cake with a delicate or airy crumb, like angel food cake.

When you shouldn’t skip sifting

Sift an ingredient if it’s lumpy

Some ingredients, such as cocoa powder, powdered sugar, cake flour, baking powder, almond flour, and ground ginger, tend toward lumps. Unless it’s a fresh bag, I’ll always sift powdered sugar and cocoa powder to ensure that they incorporate evenly into batters, doughs, or icings.

Dry ingredients can also compress and form lumps over time. If your flour has been sitting in your pantry for several months, you’ll want to sift before adding it to a recipe. You also might choose to sift flour for batters that are prone to lumping, such as pancake batter.

Sift an ingredient if folding it into a delicate cake batter 

Sifting lightens flour, which helps it incorporate more easily (and quickly) into light batters without deflating them. Sift flour carefully if you fold it into a fluffy or egg white-based cake batter like chiffon, angel food cake, or genoise. Many bakers will sift dry ingredients (such as the flour, baking powder, and spices) together to make sure they’re evenly distributed. I recommend still whisking your ingredients together for at least 30 seconds after sifting them.

How to sift ingredients (with or without a sifter)  

If a recipe calls for sifting, you can use a dedicated sifter, a tool with either a crank or squeeze mechanism that agitates the flour and helps it fall through the mesh. If you really want to be precise, you can use a sifter with a specific mesh number, which denotes how fine it will sift your flour. The higher the mesh number, the finer it will be.

I simply use a fine-mesh strainer, which you can also do if you’d like to skip adding another tool to your cabinet. I either tap the strainer against my palm over the bowl, or I take a spoon and stir the flour and/or other ingredients to help them fall through.