Week 3: Angel Food Cake

Last week, I compared two angel food cake recipes: one with water added and one without. The one with extra water was more tender, but had an eggy flavor. This week I want to see if these differences were just due to differences in the recipes or if they were really due to the water. The recipe with water last week was ~6% water. I will thus take the recipe from last week that had good flavor and no water, and I will make it both without and with ~6% water. My splits are:

Splits A and B (without and with water). Percentages don't include salt or vanilla, which were held constant.

Split B has more total batter than Split A, so if they had the same rise, we'd expect Split B to be taller than Split A. However, I found that Split B only had a hight of 5.9 cm, while Split A had a height of 6.7 cm, so the water is not really needed to get a larger rise out of the cake. Last week, Split A was only 6.0 cm, but it was only my second time making angel food cake, so it seems like good technique is critical here.

Split A was more uniform and had a higher rise.

Split B had a lot of variation in height.

Unlike last week, both Split A and Split B had good flavor, so the eggy flavor of the recipe with water last week was likely due to that specific recipe. Additionally, both splits had a cracked top unlike the recipe with water last week, so that recipe must have been slightly off. People in favor of water claim that it makes a moister, more tender cake. However, I found that Split A and Split B were the same tenderness. Split B did seem slightly moister than Split A, but Split A was already very moist.

It was difficult to pick between the two splits because they were so similar, so I put the splits to what I call the "strawberry test." I macerated some chopped strawberries in sugar and drizzled the strawberries and their juices over the cakes. Split B got a bit soggy, while Split A held up well. I thus decided to use Split A as my base recipe. Since you don't have to add water, Split A also gives you more control over how you whip the meringue. Next time, I will explore how whipping the meringue to different points affects the angel food cake.