I have never
been much of a fan of angel food cake. I
know this will come as a shock to some...but I have always found it to be a bit
too sweet. This is of course something
that can be corrected...with the accompaniment of a simple berry compote...or a
tart lemon cream. What could not—or so I
thought—be mended was the rubbery, Nerf ball-like texture. The cake always struck me as something created
by someone on an ultra abstemious, fat-restricted diet—only desirable if you
weren't allowed to have anything else to eat for dessert. But even then, my preference would be for a
nice bowl of fresh fruit....
But as with
almost every food that I have ever come across that is beloved by many and
disliked by me, I discovered that the problem was with the versions that I had
tasted...not the actual food itself. Recently
I have found that angel food cake can not only be edible...it can be
delectable—tender and light... and with a fleeting sweetness that dissolves so
quickly in your mouth that you immediately want to take another bite.
Part of the
problem with the angel food cakes usually encountered is that almost everyone
uses a mix (which are pretty much awful)...or purchases a substandard bakery
version (they can always be found in the prepared food sections of the grocery
stores in the spring...during the height of strawberry season). I would guess that scratch versions are rare
because most people don't bake enough to have a use for a dozen or more egg
yolks (angel food cake uses a lot of whites...and no yolks). But the larger impediment probably has to do
with having to beat egg whites. Getting
them just right can be a bit tricky.
I made my
first angel food cake a few years ago at the request of my mother. She wanted one for her Mothers' Day dinner
dessert. Remembering the angel cakes of
my childhood I wasn't very enthused about it, but it was for Mothers'
Day.... I began as I always do by
looking up a number of recipes. Not
surprisingly, I found them all to be fairly similar. Angel food cake follows a pretty standard
formula: The weight of the sugar and
whites should be equal. And whatever the
weight of these, the flour should weigh a third of that (so, in my recipe the
sugar and whites are 15 oz. each, and the flour weighs 5 oz.). Most recipes also call for cake flour (which
should give a nice light, tender result), salt, cream of tartar and
vanilla.
The mixing
method is always some variation of whipping the whites with all (or most) of
the sugar and then folding in everything else.
You will find recipes that start with all the sugar in the bowl with the
whites (this makes the process quite slow, but it also prevents over
beating)...and others that use a more traditional approach of adding the sugar
gradually to the whites as they are whipped.
Sometimes some of the sugar is held back and mixed with the flour and
folded in at the end. And, as you can
imagine, the method you use is what makes the difference between a light,
tender cake...an indifferent cake...and an awful cake.
The first few
times I made what I felt were fairly indifferent cakes. Not terrible...but nothing to get excited about
either. Since everyone is used to marginal
angel cakes (or so it seems to me...), mine seemed to go over just fine. But I still wasn't very happy with it and I
continued to read up on angel food cake, altering my recipe a little bit each
year.
 |
| With strawberry-rhubarb compote |
Last year I made one that pleased
me very much. I made careful notes but
forgot about it until Mothers' Day rolled around again this year. When I made it again this year, I was once
again super impressed. I wish I could
point to all of the recipes that contributed to my final version...but I can't. There were just so many, some of which I can't
even locate at this point. I do know
that I relied pretty heavily on Joy of Cooking, an article in Fine Cooking by Flo Braker...and Shirley Corrhier's comments on the topic in her book Bakewise.
Mostly what I
discovered is that the whites need to be beaten less than you think. Most
people are probably over beating the whites (I know that I was). The wording "beat whites until stiff and
glossy" (which is what you find in a lot of recipes) is misleading. When it comes to angel food cake, stiff
whites are over beaten whites. The
finished whites will indeed be glossy...and hold their shape—but they should
not be so firm that you have to bang the whisk on the edge of the bowl to get
it to release the whites. They should be
soft and form what I would call floppy...or droopy...peaks.
When you lift the whisk out of the bowl, a
gentle shake should release the beaten whites so that they flow easily from the
whisk into the bowl. (It is worth noting
that while you will be able to turn the bowl of beaten whites upside down
without having them slide out of the bowl, by the time you add the remaining
ingredients, the batter will be pourable—if you have to scoop to get the final
batter out of the bowl and into the pan, the whites were over whipped.)
Flo Braker,
in a very good article in Fine Cooking, makes the observation that the goal is
to beat the whites to their optimal capacity...not their maximum capacity (i.e.
"stiff"). When you are done whipping
the whites they should still have a suppleness and elasticity to them. If beaten to just this point—and no further—when
the cake is placed in the oven and the beaten whites are subjected to heat, the
bubbles formed during the whipping process will be able to continue to expand
without bursting.... and will reach their maximum capacity in the oven. If they
had already reached their maximum capacity while being whipped, they would
still expand in the oven, eventually pop and the cake would collapse (sometimes
a lot) and probably toughen.
Much is also
often made of the folding in of the dry ingredients. The reason for this is that improper folding
is inefficient and creates more opportunity for crushing the carefully prepared
egg foam. And I agree this is
important...but a supple egg foam (see above) is much more forgiving than a
firm and stiff egg foam. As long as you
are using a rubber spatula, whisk or mesh angel food cake folder...and are
using the proper motion you should be fine.
 |
| An "angel food cake folder"... I don't know of any other name for this odd looking implement. It is probably what my great grandmother used to make her angel food cakes. |
To fold, cut
down through the center of the batter with your chosen implement until you
touch the bottom of the bowl.
Drag/scrape across the bottom toward yourself and continuing up the side
of the bowl. Turn the batter over on
itself (toward the center—you will need to rotate your wrist and forearm to do
this) as you bring your folding implement up and out of the batter. As you are lifting the whites from the bottom
and depositing them on the top, turn the bowl a quarter of a turn with the
other hand. Start the motion over again
cutting down through the center. The
motion should be continuous and rhythmic....cutting down, scraping up,
depositing the batter in the center and turning the bowl...and repeating until
the batter is homogenous with no visible streaks of flour. (It is much easier
to do than to describe....)
Finally, make
sure you use a large, ungreased 10-inch tube pan for this recipe. My recipe is very large and the cake will
come all the way up to the rim of the pan while baking.
If your pan is smaller, simply make 2/3 to
4/5 of the recipe. As for the preparation
of the pan...it is left ungreased so that the baking cake can adhere to the
sides and climb to its full height.
Because the pan is ungreased, the golden brown crust will remain in the
pan when the cake is tipped out—revealing the beautiful and pristine white
crumb of the cake.
I'm glad that
I have finally made friends with angel food cake...making them is apparently in
my DNA. I am told that my great
grandmother made an angel food cake that was so good she was able to sell them to bring in a little extra money.
The story that has made it to my generation says that she used to sit on
the back stairs while she whipped the whites by hand. Amazing.
I will not be giving up my stand mixer any time soon....but now that I
know how good this cake can be, I will continue the family
tradition...hopefully making angel food cake more than just once a year.
Angel
Food Cake
5 oz. cake flour
5 oz. powdered (also called confectioner's or icing)
sugar
3/8 t. salt
15 oz. egg whites
1 3/4 t. cream of tartar
10 oz. granulated sugar
2 t. vanilla
Sift the cake flour, powdered sugar and salt together
and set aside.
Place the whites in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment, run the mixer on
medium low until the whites are frothy.
Add the cream of tartar. Increase
the speed to medium and beat until the bubbles are small and uniform and you
can see the trace of the whisk in the egg foam (this will only take a minute or
so). Increase the speed to medium high
and gradually add the sugar, beating to soft and floppy peaks (a minute or
two). DO NOT BEAT TO STIFF PEAKS...the
egg foam should fall easily from the beater with a little encouragement (you
shouldn't need to bang the whisk against the edge of the bowl). Quickly add the vanilla.
Add the dry mix in three additions, sifting over the
meringue and folding in.
Pour the batter into an ungreased 10-inch tube pan (see note). Run a palate knife through to get rid of any pockets. If you dripped batter on the sides, run a rubber spatula around the edge of the pan.
Transfer to a 350° oven and bake until golden, cracked
and springy. A skewer will come out
clean and an instant read thermometer will register 206°....about 45
minutes. Don't start checking until the
cake has been in the oven for at least 35 minutes.
Cool upside down
(place the cone over a funnel...or wine bottle...or simply upside down on a
rack—most pans have three handles/legs around the top edge for just this
purpose) for two hours, or until completely cool. Cooling the cake upside down will keep the egg
foam bubbles fully extended as the cake cools—they will tend to want to shrink
and collapse from the pull of gravity as they cool when the pan is right side
up.
Remove from the pan by tilting the pan and gently
rapping the bottom edge of the pan on the counter, rotating the pan as you
do...you may need to run a palate knife around the top to release the top edge
first. Release the bottom and inner
column in the same way.
Note: Shirley Corriher in her book Bakewise suggests rinsing the pan with hot water (just
pour it out...don't dry it) right before adding the batter. She likes the way it warms up the pan...and
also that it adds some steam to the baking process. I have found that when rinsed with hot water
the cake comes out of the pan a bit more easily.
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