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Follow the recipe instructions as to which flour you should use – the other ingredients in the recipe, as well as the amounts of these ingredients, work well with that flour. All-purpose flour is a mixture of hard and soft-wheat flours blended to be work in almost any type of recipe with many differing ingredients. It works well in breads, cookies, cakes and pie crusts. Cake flour is the most highly refined flour, and made with soft wheat. Baking powder tends to dry and coarsen a cake, which doesn't matter in spicy or richer cakes, but it does in delicate textured cakes and cake flour compensates for this effect nicely.