Sifter

A sifter is essential for sifting flour and other dry ingredients to make sure they are as light and aerated as possible. When a recipe calls for sifting, be sure to sift! You don’t know how long your dry ingredients have been sitting on a shelf packing themselves into clumps and lumps. Sifting airs them out and lets them breathe. Once you have sifted ingredients together, always give them a stir with a spoon, as sifting doesn’t do a great job of evenly combining them. To see evidence of this, try sifting together some flour with a few tablespoons of cocoa powder. You will see that even though the flour and cocoa aerate, they don’t combine evenly; the cocoa stays separate. We use a drum sifter at Flour, and I have an old-fashioned rotary-handled sifter at home. Both kinds are great, and a fine-mesh sieve is a good substitute.