Angel Food Cake

One of the most delightful cakes that really doesn’t need icing or dressing up is Angel food cake. Angel food cake is a delicious lighter cake that can be added to any lunch or dinner as a means of having a sweet treat afterward. It pairs well with various toppings, such as whip cream, and just plain old, powdered sugar. If you want a very nice light cake that’s delicious for your afternoon follow the recipe below.

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups of granulated sugar
• 1 Cup and 2 tablespoons of cake flour leveled
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 12 large fresh egg whites at room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of cream of tartar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. use a food processor or blender to make the granulated sugar into fine sugar or superfine sugar.
2. Set 1 cup of the superfine sugar you’ve created aside because later you’ll be adding egg whites to it.
3. Add the cake flour and salt to the food processor and pulse them together with the remaining sugar to aerate these ingredients.
4. In a bowl beat the egg whites and cream of tartar together with a mixer on medium to low speed until foamy.
5. As you beat the egg whites and cream of tartar together slowly add 1 cup of superfine sugar you had set aside. You may need to turn the speed on the mixer to medium-high.
6. Make sure to whip the egg whites, cream of tartar, and superfine sugar into soft and lofty peaks. They should look like clouds in your bowl and takes at least five minutes to do. Make sure it doesn’t turn into stiff peaks. Once you have achieved that add the vanilla extract to the bowl.
7. Slowly sift and fold in the rest of the dry ingredients which would be the cake flour, salt, and remaining sugar.
8. Pour the batter into an ungreased tube pan. If you have already greased it, wash the pan so that it is ungreased.
9. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit and once it is heated place the cake inside.
10. Once finished which is when you can put a toothpick in and it comes out clean, take the cake out and cool it upside down on a wire rack. The cake can fall under its own weight until it has been cooled.
11. Run a knife around the edges of the pan to release the cake so that it doesn’t tear.
12. When serving, use a serrated knife as this sort of cake will squish easily with a regular knife.

Tips:

• Do not use a Bundt pan for Angel food cake as it is very difficult to release it in one piece. A pan with flat sides and a flat bottom are the best and a two pan is excellent.
• Soft peaks are not stiff and will start to fall back into the mixture. It’s important that it is soft peaks otherwise if you make stiff peaks the egg whites have been over whipped and may collapse in the oven.
• Do not ever use any egg yolks. You can use an egg separator to make sure egg yolks are not in the mixture.
• It pairs well with plain white icing, whipped cream, berries, powdered sugar, and lemon curd.