All Cakes Considered - Melissa Gray [73]
Angel Food Cake
Not as Hard or as Caloric as You Think
* * *
YOU’LL NEED
A 10-inch tube pan
A whisk attachment for mixer
A long-necked glass bottle, such as a beer, wine, or salad-dressing bottle (do not use plastic)
1 cup sifted cake flour
1¼ cups sugar
1 cup egg whites (8 to 10 large egg whites)
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon almond extract
1. Center a rack and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line the tube pan with parchment paper, but DO NOT SPRAY or GREASE the pan.
2. Dry whisk the flour and only ¼ cup of the sugar together. Set aside.
3. With the mixer on medium-high and the whisk attachment in place, whisk the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt until the mixture is frothy.
4. Add the remaining cup of sugar gradually, whisking furiously (Vigorously! Fiercely!) after each addition. Think about all those Pennsylvania children who need spanking and can’t get a good one these days because their mamas’ arms have atrophied as a result of their reliance on electric mixers.
5. Increase the mixer speed to high and continue beating until the egg whites are at the stiff peak stage, but are not dry.
6. Shift down to medium speed, add the flavorings, and beat until just incorporated. DO NOT OVERBEAT.
7. Remove the bowl from the mixer. Sprinkle ¾ cup of your flour mixture over your egg whites and fold into the egg whites. This may take as many as 15 to 20 full rotations of the bowl.
8. Continue folding the flour into the batter, ¾ cup at a time, until all the flour is completely incorporated into the egg whites.
9. Pour the batter into the parchment paper-lined, UNGREASED tube pan. Avoid trapping big air bubbles as best you can: use the spatula to release any big pockets of trapped air and to smooth the top of the batter.
10. Center the pan on the oven rack and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the cake tests done.
11. Cool the cake in the pan for 5 minutes. Then, invert the pan and slip the tube portion over the neck of a long-necked bottle, so the cake is hanging upside down. We do this because Angel Food Cake is delicate and while cooling, it can actually collapse on itself if left upright. Don’t worry—it’s not going to fall out of the pan while it’s upside down, either. We didn’t grease that pan, remember?
12. When the cake is fully cooled, turn the pan right side up. Take a rubber spatula or dull butter knife (I remove the rubber from my spatula and just use the wooden handle) and carefully insert it between the pan and the cake, pushing very slightly against the spongy cake. Do this gently all the way around the sides of the pan and around the center tube. Then invert the pan onto a plate or cake rack. The cake should release itself from the pan. If not, try loosening the cake again by pushing against the sides of the cake with a spatula or knife, then unmold.
By now, you’re an experienced hand with separating eggs and whipping up egg whites, so making that light, spongy, cloudlike cake known as Angel Food will be No Big Whoop.
This is the main thing I want to emphasize: If you haven’t been using the triple-bowl method for separating your egg whites, for Pete’s sake, use it now. To review: This is the method where you
1. Break your egg over a clean bowl, allowing only the egg white to slip into said clean bowl while hanging onto your yolk, then
2. Deposit your yolk into a separate bowl specifically for egg yolks before
3. Pouring your egg white into a collecting bowl specifically for egg whites.
The reason (and I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating): With 8 to 10 eggs to separate for this recipe, you do not, I repeat DO NOT want to break egg number 8, 9, or 10 over your carefully collected egg whites and have that one errant runny yolk ruin the entire batch of whites. When broken yolk infiltrates egg whites, they will not form stiff peaks. You will not have an Angel Food Cake. You