The Rise and Fall of Angels

[mixfinder]

Angel Food Cake, long considered the benchmark of baking prowess, can be problematic. I can't begin to tell you how many Angel Food doughnuts I pulled out of the bottom of the pan before reading James Beard's caution not to over whip the egg whites because folding the dry ingredients into the firmer whites causes them to deflate more in the oven. For a while I had access to duck eggs and the angel cakes were specutacular because of higher protien and lysozyme counts creating stronger structure bonds with sugar holding air pockets. Dark shelled eggs share some of the same properties.

In the blender pulverize
2 cups sugar
Reserve 1 1/2 cups for the egg whites
Combine the remaining
1/2 cup superfine (blendered) sugar
1 1/2 cups cake flour
sift through a fine mesh 4 times and set aside being careful not to pack or remove the aeration from the flour mixture.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer combine
1 1/2 cups egg whites
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Beat on medium speed until mixture begins to looks smooth and foamy. Slowly sprinkle in
1 1/2 cups superfine (blendered) sugar.
Increase speed to high for 1 minute. Remove from mixer.
Sift flour mixture over whites in 1/4's carefully folding in the flour mixture with over and under folding motions. (You can use a mixer on low if you really know what you're doing. Never turn the bowl to pull the mixture into the beaters but let it pass away while mixing in flour) Working quickly fold the flour into the whites, not worrying amount mixing it perfectly. Some lumps and streaks of flour are fine. Pile the batter into a clean ungreased tube pan (Never, ever for any reason wack a cake pan on the counter to relieve air bubbles! THEY'RE YOUR FRIEND) and bake at 350 degrees for 38 minutes. Remove from oven and carefully invert the tube onto a small bottle or funnel. Let cool for a couple hours. When removing the cake from the pan use a stiff bladed knife or spatula. Send it down to the bottom of the pan and hold it there while slowly turning the cake pan. Avoid sawing up and down motions as they usually tear the side of the cake.

 

[tlee618]

Thanks so much for sharing that Kelly! I really want to give that a try.

 

[tomturbomatic]

My mother used to make those by hand, using a spoon-shaped wisk with spirals of wire coiled around the frame. The batter used to foam over the edge of the bowl before she got a larger one and I was allowed to run a finger around the outside edge to retrieve the overflow. I remember the Swans Down cake flour sifted onto wax paper, but back then we had no blender to pulverize the sugar. The almond extract was an exotic flavor. The first time I smelled Jergens hand lotion, I thought of Angel Food cake. She rested the pans on 3 custard cups for cooling and we would help position them while she held the cake upside down. After we scraped the good residue from the tube, the Angel Food pan was washed by itself with an unused dishcloth to avoid contaminating the pan with oil.

 

[mixfinder]

A Better Case

It would seem that a mixer and lots of whipping isn't essential for good Angel cake. The mixes do well with really stiff peaks and it was a hard lesson to unlearn.

 

[mattl]

It looks good, might try it. I make Chiffon cakes all the time, and while similar in procedure quite different in texture. Out of the dozens and dozens of Chiffon cakes I've made I've only had on bad experience, and orange version that was in the local paper a few years ago. Something seemed off in the recipe, and that should have been a tip off.