Re: is it possible I got a bad batch of Caputo flour

“Cakey” is just my way of describing the texture of the flour in raw form. It kind of reminds me powdered milk.

Gotcha. I’ve used “clumpy” to express the same flour state. Sounds like pretty wet flour, but that doesn’t explain the dough-tearing issue. Unless perhaps it wasn’t mixed / hydrated well so the clumpiness contributed to weak spots in the dough? Maybe try sifting the flour before next use and drop the hydration a couple points.