Standard flour? Which standard?

There are a lot of different kinds of flour. At most well stocked grocers in North America you will find pastry flour, all purpose flour, bread flour, organic flour, self rising flour, etc. That’s just the white wheat flour that you could use to make a cake. Don’t forget that whole wheat and different varietals of wheat exist. If you make cake with bread flour it is going to be very different from one made with pastry flour. There is no such thing as “standard flour”. Hell, even the mill that you use to grind the wheat berry can drastically change the nature of your flour.

That’s the whole point of this article. That what you think of as a standard might not be a standard forever, or it might not be a standard at all.

> all purpose flour

Use that one. It's flour, but like for all purposes. You can make cake with it fine.

> self rising flour

That's just another unnecessary mix you can buy individually.

> That’s the whole point of this article. That what you think of as a standard might not be a standard forever, or it might not be a standard at all.

Flour types are not up to some corporation's marketing team. And for home cooking they don't really matter as much as you are implying. Just get the types best suited for the most common thing(s) you are making and make substitutes for the rest.

Also, there's going to be one type that is always stocked more than others. That's your standard flour. You can use it for most recipes (cake and bread) just fine.