Angels Must be Diabetics
I always forget about angel food cake. That’s right! Angel food cake exists! I forgot! The last time I was at LAX I watched as an older woman drew forth an absolutely massive wrapped piece of angel food cake from her purse¹ and took a python-like, baseball sized bite out of it. Ever since then I keep remembering at inopportune times, like walking home from the library: oh yeah, angel food cake! And then I get home and don’t have a full carton of eggs and forget again.
Angel food cake always seems so wasteful. A whole carton of yolks thrown away! In the past I’ve concurrently made lemon curd or something to try and use up the yolks, but this last time I just admitted that throwing away $1.89 worth of egg yolks was more economical than buying $5 worth of lemons just to save five yolks. Also: my grocery store had angel food cakes on sale for $2.50, so I should have just bought one, but what the fuck. I endeavor to make all things difficult.
What is funny to me is that you can buy Betty Crocker angel food cake mix. You still have to whip it into meringue, so the entire “cake mix” portion of the show is defeated. If you don’t want to make angel food cake from scratch, you should just buy one. They’re generally alright. In fact, they’re pretty good. But again: difficult? No. So, to the mixer we go.
So full! Every time I make angel food cake I think, this isn’t going to go well. Fulling a tube pan almost to the top? Disaster in the chute. But no. It doesn’t rise.
Even though my tube pan has the classic little cooling feet (if you ever wondered what those things were for, it’s for cooling sponge cakes; when they are warm they are in danger of crushing under their own weight, so they need to hang upside down for at least an hour) I always invert my cake to a bottle anyway — more air circulation means faster cooling time. Also, it looks goofy, which I value above most things.
And that’s it. Easy peasy. Clean up is easy less horrible because nothing is greasy. But we still haven’t hit on why I should remember to make angel food cakes in the first place:
Deeeelishus. Like a marshmallow. And then I am reminded of what I always forget even when I remember to make angel food cake: make it in a sheet pan so I have more crust. Oh well, sometime in 2011 when I get around to it again I’ll maybe possibly remember.
Angel Food Cake
straight outta Joy of Cooking.
sift together and set aside:
1 cup cake flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
in a large bowl beat on low speed for 1 minute:
1 1/2 cups cold egg whites (probably 12 eggs exactly)
1 Tbsp. water
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. almond extract
have ready:
an additional 3/4 cup of sugar
- Heat oven to 350°.
- After beating on low speed for a minute, increase the mixer speed to medium and beat until the volume increases about 5 times (and since this is very hard to visualize) or until the egg foam is a soft foam composed of tiny but still visible bubbles. This takes from 1 1/2 to 3 minutes depending on the age of the eggs.
- Beat in the additional 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, over the next 2 to 3 minutes. When all the sugar has been added the whites will be totally opaque and creamy with no visible bubbles and will hold soft, glossy peaks that bend over at the points when you lift out the beater. Do not beat until the points are totally upright stiff when you lift out the beater.
- Sift a fine layer of the flour mixture over the whites (about 1/8th of the total) and gently fold in with a rubber spatula until the flour is almost incorporated. Do not overmix. Repeat the process with the remaining flour in about 7 more batches, taking care to fully mix in the flour with the last batch. If you don’t know how to “fold in” flour then you should Google it first.
- Spoon the batter into a removable-bottom tube pan that is UNGREASED in any fashion. Straight out of the wash (but dry) is perfect. Carefully smooth the batter as you go to prevent any large bubbles.
- Bake for 35 – 40 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
- Let cool upside down over a bottle for at least an hour, or until totally cool to the touch.
- To unmold, first run a butter knife around the edge of the pan and lift the cake out by the tube portion. With a long knife or similar implement, run along the bottom of the cake between the cake and the pan. Leave the knife still under the cake on one side. Use a spatula or similar item to insert between the cake and pan on the other side. Having someone help you, lift the two utensils so you are holding the cake with them, and have the other person push on the tube in the middle to drop the pan bottom. Set the cake onto a plate.
- If you wrap the cake in plastic wrap, it will ruin the toasted marshmallow crust. I’m just warning you. You have to eat the cake in the first 24 hours. That’s my solution, anyway.
¹ No kidding, this is near the top of my goals in life. To always have cake in my purse. When I was about 17 my mom and I met for coffee one afternoon and she said, “Do you want some cake?” and I remember looking at the cafe’s pastry case and thinking, hmmm, maybe, and then turning around in time to see my mom pulling a piece of homemade pound cake out of her purse. And at that moment, all my teenage grief and angst over my relationship with my mom (founded on nothing at all) totally evaporated and was replaced with love and respect. True story!
July 8th, 2010 | Make It So
I seem to remember having a friend who’s grandmother always had a piece of cake in her purse. I think we need to devise some kind of purse-size cake carrier. Always having cake in your purse is a goal to aspire to in our later years.
Angel food cupcakes are quite tasty as well and provide a wealth of more crust.
I’ve tried the Angel Food cake mix and it’s not bad especially if you don’t know your egg status – it only requires water, and of course the insane whipping) I would hazard to say it is slightly above store-bought quality.
whoa, that cake is 100% gorgeous. I want it!
I’m dieting and angel food cake is the least of the offenders, and is still CAKE.
Jill: I truly think we should aspire to this. I don’t mean to get all Oprah on anyone, but it’s a pretty good symbol for the kind of person I hope to evolve to — prepared, sweet, generous, and surprising. There can be no downside. And yes: please design and produce a reusable container shaped like a piece of cake STAT.
Anne: Cupcakes! D’oh. I am so one-track-minded sometimes. And! I did not EVEN consider the idea that the boxed cake mix removes the carton-of-eggs-dilemma from the equation. I have to reconsider this whole thing.
Amani: I must admit it was a not-insignificant part of me that rationalized making this cake because it was entirely fat free. I am more ashamed of this part of myself than the part of myself that went ahead and ate the whole cake.
well, there’s this
http://www.cupacake.com/default.asp
but I have not found anything triangle shaped. We must invent.
My dad has had angel food cake as his birthday cake since he was a kid. My grandmother used to “frost” it– she’d drain canned pineapple and mix it with cool whip, cut the cake horizontally and use the pineapple mixture as filling, then coat all the sides and stuff any extra in the center. My stepmom has taken to sprinkling the thing with coconut flakes. It adds a bit of flavor but I think it detracts from the light spongy texture. Might work in a smaller dose as cupcake frosting though!
As far as cake purse storage, how about these? http://cgi.ebay.com/Tupperware-Modular-Mates-Triangle-Wedge-Container-PINK-/310232866571?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item483b51df0b#ht_500wt_1115
Laughing. Great story. I once sat in an airport and watched a woman pull a small baggie from her carry on and begin to noisily smack on something which quickly revealed itself to be aromatic. My brother and I exchanged looks and said “…is she eating…crayfish? Yes. She’s sucking crawdaddy heads. In an airline terminal. Offer her a mint in a few minutes. As a kindness to her seatmate.”
Ah family traditions. We only have angel food cake once per year, at Xmas. Why? ‘Cause of the annual Eggs Bene breakfast on Xmas morning. We use probably two cartons full of yolks….and make a cake with the whites. We also usually end up freezing some yolks or making meringue cookies.