angel food cake

Or, as the boy calls it, angel wing cake. Whatever you call it, it's a super light, sweet, tasty cake! It was my mom's birthday on Wednesday, and rather than make her one from a mix, I thought I'd go all out and make one from scratch, since it's her favourite. Just as a head's up, this recipe calls for 12 - yes, one dozen! - egg whites! Have no fear though, because I found a tasty awesome recipe that calls for 6 yolks, so it's not all going to waste, so I'll post that one next weekend. (Spoiler alert - it's creme brulée.) I adapted the recipe from this one, by Alton Brown, on the Food Network website, and it worked like a charm.

Angel Food Cake
Serves 8-10, depending on how generous your slices our. Ours served 4.
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup cake flour, sifted (look here for substitutions if you don't have/want to buy cake flour)
12 egg whites, at room temperature (separate them and let them sit on the counter for 20-30 min)
1/3 cup warm water
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

If you haven't already, separate your eggs (setting the yolks aside if you have another use for them), and let the whites sit in your mixing bowl for at least 20 minutes. The closer they are to room temperature, the better/quicker they'll whip up. While you're waiting, take your sugar and put it in a food processor/blender/Magic Bullet (guess which one I used...) for about two minutes, until it's a fine powder. (Please don't just use icing sugar, because it's not entirely the same thing, and I'm not sure how the sciencey chemical stuff would work out.)

Once the egg whites are warmed up, preheat the oven to  350˚ F. Sift half of your newly powdered sugar into a bowl with the flour and salt. Set the other half aside.

In a large bowl (trust me, it doesn't look like you'll need it to be big now, but you will!), mix your egg whites, water, vanilla extract, and cream of tarter. Stir this by hand with a whisk for about two minutes, then switch to a hand mixer. I used the whisk attachment on my KitchenAid, and turned it up to about 6, so medium on whatever mixer you use should be about right.  While it's mixing/whisking, slowly sift the sugar powder that you set aside earlier into the bowl. Keep mixing up a storm, until it's forming medium (not too soft, not too hard) peaks. As long as I did it right, it should look something like this:

Next, sift the flour/sugar/salt mixture on top of the egg white concoction, just enough to dust the top. It's easiest if you take the bowl off/out of the mixer at this point, as it gives you a bit more space to work with. Once the top is dusted, gently fold it in with a spatula. Repeat this until all the flour mixture is incorporated.

Carefully spoon the mixture into an ungreased tube pan (or as I call them, angel food cake pans, because that's all I ever use mine for), and bake for 35 minutes.

Check that it's done by inserting a wooden skewer midway between the inner and outer walls (or if you're an idiot like me, a massive fork, making giant ugly holes in the top!). If the skewer comes out clean/dry, it's done. Take it out of the oven, and cool it in the pan, upside down, for at least an hour. I perch mine on an upturned coffee mug, a little trick I picked up from Mom.

Once it's cooled, use a knife to carefully cut along the inner and outer walls of the pan, to free that cake for eating!

 

The best topping for angel food cake? Fresh strawberries and whipped cream of course!

Hopefully that was worth the effort over the boxed mix version! I found it definitely had a lighter, moister texture, and was REALLY tasty. Like I said, I'll make sure to post the creme brulée recipe asap, so you'll have a use for all those egg yolks. Enjoy!

c.