Baking Tips for the Busy – as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. One thing that I like to do when I am baking is to measure out onto a sheet of parchment paper – parchment paper is my friend. If you have a busy family like I do, if you have children, if the phone is ringing, chances are you have put your ingredients into a bowl and then maybe you have come back to it because you answered the door and you cannot quite remember what you put in it, so this is what I do. So, no matter what that ingredient is, typically I sift my flour in advance, and I happen to always use high ratio flour when I am baking cakes. The reason I like a high ratio cake flour is because it has been processed to reduce the amount of protein and the amount of gluten that is present in the actual flour. It makes a very fine silky texture because the grains are a little bit finger than regular cake flour. Regular cake flour can be found in most grocery stores in the baking aisle and it is typically in a box. It is about a one pound or a two pound box. If you prefer to try a high ratio flour, any specialty baking supplier should be should be able to have it for you. So this is what I do – I actually take my flour, and you always want to level it off. I tend to sift first and then measure and then if my recipe calls for three quarters of a cup of flour, then I literally put three quarters of a cup separately onto my parchment paper. This way when my son is telling me that something went wrong, I can …