Angel Food Cake

[Carolyn Tillie]

Scratch is infinitely better but if you are worried about having leftover egg yolks, take a look at your local grocer -- they now sell egg whites all by their lonesome! Way easier and much easier to justify.

BTW, I'm a tremendous Angel Food Cake fan, often making them with a swirled chocolate and white batter...

[Pat W]

Scratch is infinitely better but if you are worried about having leftover egg yolks, take a look at your local grocer -- they now sell egg whites all by their lonesome! Way easier and much easier to justify.

BTW, I'm a tremendous Angel Food Cake fan, often making them with a swirled chocolate and white batter...

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Yes, that actually is part of the problem. The yolks would almost certainly be thrown away. Are you talking about powdered egg whites?

Swirled chocolate & white sounds amazing. I think you just planned out my Sunday for me.

Pat w.

[McDuff]

Thirty years ago when I first started cooking and baking for a living, angel food cake was one of the first things I made. It's easy, cheap, teaches you a lot of good lessons, tastes good, and is worth the time and effort to make from scratch. Go for it.

[Wendy DeBord]

Definately make your own from scratch. Martha Stewart has a chocolate chip angel food cake that's very good. I make it often. You should be able to find that recipe easily online.

[Pat W]

Thirty years ago when I first started cooking and baking for a living, angel food cake was one of the first things I made. It's easy, cheap,  teaches you a lot of good lessons, tastes good, and is worth the time and effort to make from scratch. Go for it.

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That was exactly the kind of advice I needed. Thank you for saving me from myself.

Pat w.

[Pat W]

Definately make your own from scratch. Martha Stewart has a chocolate chip angel food cake that's very good. I make it often. You should be able to find that recipe easily on-line.

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Ok, it should be easy, but I haven't found it yet. Will try tomorrow when hopefully I'm slightly more lucid (very long day, but by golly we got our taxes mailed).

Edited to say: Not noticibly more lucid but managed to find the recipe this morning.

Coincidently Wendy, I made your banana cake tonight & we just had our first piece. I baked it in a 9X9 spring form pan & topped it with a cream cheese frosting dusted with chopped walnuts. That was of course gilding the lily, it would have been fine with a smidgen of powdered sugar. None the less, describing it as a spiritual experience would not be overstating the point. Thanks so much for sharing your recipe. It was stellar. (Just sneaked back into the kitchen for another piece.)

Pat w.

Edited April 16, 2005 by Pat W (log)

[ruthcooks]

Don't throw away all those egg yolks, use them first. Make Hollandaise or Bearnaise, baked custard or flan, egg bread, lemon curd, etc. Save all the whites and freeze them until you have enough for the angel food cake. Homemade, please. Frosting is good, but whipped cream and strawberries or raspberries is possibly better.

(You can't freeze yolks very well, and you have to use them within a day or two, so this can't be done in reverse.)

[simdelish]

RLB has an excellent angelfood cake in the Cake Bible. It's a chocolate angelfood, and it's so moist and wonderful... (gosh, now I'm thinking I may have to whip one up today!) It uses cocoa, which helps to balance the oversweetness of typical angelfood. Rose's recipe takes 16 whites, if I remember correctly, but I always have uses for lots of whites, as well as lots of yolks, with all the cakes, bearnaise/hollandaise I make fairly regularly, and big batches of lemon curd when lemons are cheap. I also keep sandwich baggies of whites in the freezer, as Ruth suggests, usually in lots of 4. Very handy.

My kids make the plain vanilla box angelfood mix, and it's not bad, pleases pretty well, very moist. I must admit tho, the entire cake is consumed within hours, (sometimes less than the time it takes to get from "hour" to "hours"). I prefer it with fresh macerated strawbs, but my bunch likes to dip cubes in chocolate fondue. That's one of their favorites in their "kid" repetoire.

[jgarner53]

For me, the hardest part about making an angel food cake has always been waiting for it to cool! (Though I loved, as a kid, that you had to set the pan upside down and that it wouldn't fall out).

I definitely say make your own. It's really not much more work than the box mix, and I find them much tastier. Angel food cake was the first thing I made after I got my KA stand mixer. Like others have said, use the yolks for lemon curd, bearnaise, hollandaise, or make mayonnaise, a custard, or crème brulée.

[Pat W]

I got side tracked for a few days with a health glitch but all is well now.

I just wanted to thank everyone for the encouragement and ideas. I am a convert, no cake mix shall darken my door.

And to those of you who suggested lemon curd, I can only say - brilliant! I suspect we will soon be knee deep in lemon curd around here, at least until I can find the packaged egg whites.

Is it true that one should avoid baking angel food cakes on rainy days or when the air is very humid?

[Carolyn Tillie]

Scratch is infinitely better but if you are worried about having leftover egg yolks, take a look at your local grocer -- they now sell egg whites all by their lonesome! Way easier and much easier to justify.

BTW, I'm a tremendous Angel Food Cake fan, often making them with a swirled chocolate and white batter...

←

Yes, that actually is part of the problem. The yolks would almost certainly be thrown away. Are you talking about powdered egg whites?

Swirled chocolate & white sounds amazing. I think you just planned out my Sunday for me.

Pat w.

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No, not powdered at all -- a carton of whites that have to be measured (usually by weight) instead of counting the number of eggs opened. Read about it here!

[wyf4lyf]

My son's 18th birthday is this week and his favorite cake is angel food. I'm ashamed to admit that I've never made one from scratch. But this time, I want to bake one for him. I have the Cook's Illustrated recipe and it looks simple enough. Has anyone tried that one? Is there a better one I should make instead?

Thanks...

Nina

[mart242]

The recipe from Good Eats (www.goodeatsfanpage.com or from the foodnetwork) is pretty good and foolproof IMHO. You could also read the episode transcript on goodeatsfanpage to see which tips he mentionned.

As far as I remember, it was quite tasty too.

[K8memphis]

Don't open the oven door early

Good luck!

[rickster]

Don't use a greased or non stick pan

[Tengrain]

...and don't deflate the foam when you are folding in the flour. Other than that, it is an easy and wonderful cake. Good luck!

[jgarner53]

Be sure to bake it in a pan you can invert (like a traditional angel food cake/tube pan) while the cake is cooling. This allows the cake to set while it cools. Otherwise, it will collapse under its own weight.

When you're folding in the flour (do sift it if the recipe calls for it, as most do), sift it over the batter, about 1/3 to 1/4 at a time. While you're folding, think about maintaining the air you've spent all that time beating into the egg whites and treat them accordingly (that is, fold gently - don't stir vigorously!)

I'm sure you'll do great with it.

[wyf4lyf]

Thanks, everyone. I'll be baking it on Weds. morning...will come back with a full report!

Nina

[M.X.Hassett]

How about ala Sandra Lee. Open box, place cake large side down. Maybe you could also make some chocolate frosting and sugar "Truffles".

Sorry, I just can not not(I know double negative) snark Sandra.

But seriously the recipe from AB's "Good Eats" site is pretty foolproof.

Best of luck, and happy 18th to your son. I remember it being a pretty big milestone in the teen years and how nice he will be spending with you.

[wyf4lyf]

LOL! The last 2 years, I did it a la Sandra Lee, I'm ashamed to say. I bought an angel food cake, made milk chocolate frosting to fill it and ice it and then a dark chocolate ganache to pour over the whole thing. It looked great and my son was happy. He'd requested all the chocolate...I thought it totally masked the angel food, but hey...the things we do for love. This year I promised him a homemade one. Thankfully all he wants with it this time are fresh berries, a much more sensible choice, IMO!

[Wendy DeBord]

My favorite recipe for angel food cake comes from Martha Stewarts website. It's a chocolate chip angel food cake.............just don't add the chocolate bits and you've got a pretty good plain angel food cake. Using both almond extract and vanilla extract makes your cake taste more similar to purchased angel food cakes.......it's up to you if you want that or not. If not, use all vanilla.

I hope this goes well for you. Angel food cakes are supprisingly easy to make........once you try. I think you'll be successful. The only tip that come to my mind at this moment: make sure you've baked it completely by testing it with a toothpick. If it's underbaked it will deflate a bit upon cooling and be dense. Otherwise.........just follow the recipe.

[Redsugar]

The first-known recipes for Angel Food Cake were published in the 1880s.

To begin, it is imperative that your egg whites be ready at room temperature. They are the basic ingredient and are pretty much the sole leavening.

Use an ungreased angel-food pan. Indeed, be sure all bowls & utensils are spotlessly free of grease.

Use cake flour rather than AP and sift it several times.

Because of its lightless, angel cake is usually served with little or no icing. (Chocolate versions being the most common exception.) Lori Longbotham embellishes her cakes with an appealing Lemon Glaze. [see Luscious Lemon Desserts (Chronicle Books, 2001); pp. 20-22.] Add a few drops of good-quality grenadine syrup to give it a special enhancement. Also refer to the Orange-Angel Food Cake offered by Barbara Scott-Goodman & Mary Goodbody, The Garden Entertaining Cookbook: Recipes & Menus for Casual Dining Outdoors – another Chronicle publication, 2001; pp. 125f.

It’s really best to break apart the cake, rather than slice it. Or try using one of those large comblike tools. If a knife must be used, I’d suggest choosing a thin, well-honed serrated blade dipped in water.

Here is the recipe I’ve used most often for summertime service; I very much like to use crème anglaise as an accompaniment along with fresh, slightly tart berries, know they act as a nice foil for the sweetness of the cake. Yet, macerated strawberries also generate smiles.

1¾ cups free-range egg whites (about 14 whites)

1 tsp cream of tartar

1/8 tsp fine salt

1¾ cups granulated white sugar

1¼ cups sifted cake flour

1½ tsps vanilla extract

½ tsp almond extract

¾ tsp fresh lemon juice

When you pour the batter into the pan, smooth the top with a spatula, then rap the pan on the work surface. Bake in a 300° F. oven until golden brown and springy to the touch. Remove cake from pan by loosening it around the edges with a long thin-bladed metal palette knife. If you like to add rosewater, please be sure to use triple-filtered!

[wyf4lyf]

Thanks for all the advice. The cake turned out pretty well. I tested it with a toothpick and it came out almost clean. Alton Brown had said it shouldn't be bone dry. But it turned out that I really should have baked it at least 5 minutes more. It was a bit sticky. I have a really old 2-piece tube pan with feet (from my Mom) and the cake actually slid out of the pan onto the platter! I didn't grease the pan, either. Really odd. But it did rise up very sell, it tasted good, and my son was happy (though I think he's so used to store bought ones that he probably prefers them over homemade...sigh...).

I'll try it again another time.

Thanks again.

Nina

[snowangel]

Anyone ever done these? Possible? We have a birthday party on Sunday, and I'd really rather do a mess of cupcakes than a couple of cakes (only one pan).

[K8memphis]

I've made random shaped angel food cakes. They might shrink a bit more. I'd say make them as last minute as possible. Wonder how much you're gonna loose in the paper? Maybe use those ginormous muffin papers?

I make brownies in cup cake papers. No messy slicing, serving. Cupcakes are the bomb.

You've maybe seen cupcake cakes. Where a huge glob of cupcakes are iced and decorated as a cake? You don't line the cupcakes up one after another you just put them all willy nilly as close together as possible being sure to fill in the little gaps. I'm sure you've seen that. I'm just running my mouth.

While I'm mouth running here, I remember seeing this in a book of mine, either Bake Sale or Gifts From Your Kitchen, these really cool cupcakes where you make a for real cupcake but you fill the cup cake paper only part way with batter and finish with angel food batter on top. I've never made them but I thought they were really cool.

Angel food thoughts for you.