Angel Food Cake

I love Easter and angel food cakes. They seem to go together for me. Making an angel food cake from scratch is both an art and a science. The taste of a homemade angel food cake is so much better than using a cake mix or purchasing bakery cake. For many years, I was not able to crack the code to a really good angel food cake. After much determination, research and many cakes, angel food heaven has finally given up its secrets. Today I am going to share those secrets, so you too can climb to angel food cake success.

First let’s look at the science behind the angel food cake: twelve eggs should be at room temperature and must be carefully separated to avoid any yolk. The egg whites are beaten to the soft peak stage. I have beaten the egg whites to the stiff peak stage, but the cake is never as high as one in which the egg whites are at the soft peak stage. Using cream of tartar will help to strengthen the egg white. It is best to use granulated sugar to add to the egg whites for strength, and use powdered sugar when sifting it into the flour for lightness. Cake flour should be used instead of all purpose, for a light, tender and high cake. I used a simple metal strainer to sift the flour and sugar together, and it was much faster than using my flour sifter. The right amount of sugar must be used, as I have found that cutting back on the sugar reduces the height of the cake and produces a tougher cake that lacks flavour. This is a cake that requires: the right ingredients, in the right order and handled by the right method. For interest you can use food coloring to have gentle layers of pastel pink, yellow. Green or white. If you have flavouring, you can add cherry or almond flavouring to the pink, lemon flavouring to the yellow and peppermint flavouring to the green. Good luck and happy Easter and spring.

Angel Food Cake

1 cup cake flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup powdered icing sugar

13 large egg whites (about 1 2/3 cups)

1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 cup granulated white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Sift the cake flour, the salt and the powdered sugar together. Separate out 12 room temperature egg whites and one refrigerated egg white. Beat with a mix master until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat until the egg whites start to form soft peaks. Gradually add the granulated sugar while beating, keeping the egg whites in the soft peak stage. Do not beat to the stiff peak stage. In the last 5 seconds add the vanilla. Sift some of the flour mixture over the delicate beaten egg whites, and then gently fold the flour mixture into the egg white with one stroke. Continue until all the flour mixture is folded in. Do not over stir. Pour into an ungreased, two-piece tube pan and bake for 43 – 50 minutes. Over baking caused the cake to deflate. Turn the cake pan upside down and allow to completely cool before removing. Serve with a thin butter cream icing or with whipped cream and fruit.