This Angel Food Cake is light, sweet and moist! It is naturally fat-free and easier to make than you think!
With altogether excellent intentions in 2010, I purchased a round tube pan and diligently researched recipes. This good-intentioned tube pan languished in the back of my kitchen cabinet for 4 years (okay, fine, maybe a smidge over 4 years), until 2014 when I first posted this recipe. Now that it’s 2022, it’s time my full-fledged pastry chef brain makes this the best Angel Food Cake ever.
Cookbooks’, chefs’ and bloggers’ admonishments of: don’t over whip the egg whites; avoid under whipping the egg whites; don’t fold in the flour too aggressively; avoid opening the oven door prematurely or your cake will fall; don’t over bake; don’t under bake overwhelmed me. Back then, I tied on my big-girl apron and tackled the challenge. I didn’t fail back then, and you won’t either, not if you prepare all your ingredients in your mise-en-place and follow my easy Angel Food Cake tips.
Look at that beautiful cake! The flavor is light, sweet and delicate. Oh! And it’s fat free! (Read: guilt free!)
As the cake cools, might I recommend whipping up some Blueberry Sauce, Strawberry Jam, or Caramel Sauce (all would be excellent). The perfect balance of tart and sweet!
I read countless recipes for Angel Food Cake in both my antique and modern day cookbooks before finally settling on adapting one from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, 1984 edition. I’ve added all the additional wisdom and tips that I gleaned from my extensive research so that your first (or next) try can be a success!
Reflections on Angel Food Cake
- It must be said, that as I read up on how to properly make an Angel Food Cake way back when, I, maybe like yourself, was a little scared. Angel Food Cake seemed like a tricky dessert to say the least.
- Let me be the first to tell you that Angel Food Cake should not be that daunting. You’ve totally got this! My first time trying to bake it was perfectly browned on the top and moist throughout the whole cake.
- Some say the lowest oven rack is best but I think that browns the bottom too much.
- Back in the day I used to sift my flour and confectioners’ sugar together 4 times…holy moly, now I only do it twice.
- I like to measure out all my other ingredients to have them ready (mise-en-place) for cakes that require precise timing such as these!
- If you don’t succeed, try again! The first time I made Angel Food Cake my egg whites had peaks which were slightly less stiff that true stiff peaks and the cake still turned out fabulous so don’t be too worried. Ideally you should have true stiff peaks.
- I can’t get enough of this cake! It melts in your mouth and is as light as air!
Angel Food Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup cake flour 120 g
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar 165 g
- 1 ½ cups egg whites about 9-12 eggs
- 1 ½ teaspoons cream of tartar
- 1 cup granulated sugar 230 g
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla high quality
- ½ teaspoon almond extract high quality
Instructions
- About an hour before starting the cake, separate your egg whites from yolks. Cover the yolks with water and refrigerate for a later use. In measuring cup or small bowl let the egg whites warm to room temperature.
- Preheat oven to 375° and set rack to middle shelf.
- Sift flour and powdered sugar together and set aside.
- Beat egg whites with cream of tartar in the bowl of a stand or hand mixer until foamy and cream of tartar has distributed evenly throughout whites.
- Beat in sugar 2 tablespoons at a time, on high speed, until stiff and glossy. Add the extracts and salt with the last addition of sugar.
- Remove bowl from stand mixer and sprinkle flour-sugar mixture, ¼ cup at a time, over the meringue, folding it just until the flour-sugar mixture disappears.
- Push batter into an ungreased tube pan, 10×4 inches. Cut gently through batter with a metal spatula or gently tap on counter to settle batter.
- Bake until cracks feel dry and top springs back when touched lightly, 30 to 40 minutes. I removed mine when a tester inserted into one of the cracks came out with only a few clinging crumbs.
- Invert pan on bottle and cool completely.
- To remove cake from pan, gently insert a flat offset spatula against the sides and carefully cut all the way around. You can use a small thin knife or a cake tester to cut around the middle tube. Gently flip cake over on a cooling rack, remove the pan and place the cake right side up with your hands. It should feel as light as air!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
