Substituting Self Raising Flour For Plain

Our answer

Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake (from FEAST) is a chocolate sponge that is made with plain flour and a combination of baking powder and bicarbonate of soda (baking soda). The bicarbonate of soda is added as it gives an extra lift to cake batters that contain cocoa. However the baking powder is reduced slightly to prevent the cake from bubbling over in the pan.

It is fairly easy to convert plain flour to self-raising for recipes, as the ratio of baking powder to flour is fixed. Unfortunately it is not so easy to convert the other way and as this cake does not contain the same ratio of baking powder to flour as for self-raising flour then we would not particularly recommend using self-raising flour. If this is your only option then you would need to omit both the baking powder and the bicarbonate of soda, but you may find that the testure of the sponge is slightly heavier than it should be.