If the recipe calls for plain flour + baking powder (this is for cookies/biscuits) but I only have self-raising flour, can I just use that instead and omit the baking powder?
For most bikkies it shouldn’t make a difference.
Better bakers than I should be along shortly, but I can say your plan of SR flour and no BP has worked well for me when needed - but I’ll still follow the recipe exactly if I’ve got the plain flour.
Yes, I do believe so, generally self-rising flour implies a Baking Powder leavening added to the flour that is suitable for cakes and biscuits and the like.
However, in the back of my brain, I want to think there was also a type of yeasted,“self rising flour” that was also available, at some point in time in culinary history that would be entirely different and require a rise.
The proportion of flour to baking powder is important, too. For example, this site suggests 1-1/4 teaspoons baking powder and 1/8 teaspoon salt per cup of flour. So if your recipe only calls for a little bit of baking powder, you might have a hard time getting the balance right, but it does work generally.
Not flour related, but baking substitutes -
I was making peanut butter biscuits, and ran out of two ingredients.
There were only three to begin with!
1 Cup peanut butter - damn, half and half with Nutella will have to do.
1 Cup sugar - what the…! Caster sugar, that’ll work.
1 Egg - phew.
They worked, they tasted good, the toddler scoffed the lot over a few days.
Sorry to post twice, but I’ve just found this in my Edmonds Cookery Book (New Zealand’s kitchen bible);
“If a recipe stipulates the use of Self Raising flour, substitute one and a half teaspoons of baking powder and one cup of plain flour for each cup of SR flour given in recipe.”
So - self raising flour is 1 cup plain + 1.5tsp baking powder.
It should be easy enough to check the proportions given in any recipe and decide if it will work (or be flatter/puffier/not worth the effort)