Master Recipe: Angel Food Cake

 

Master Angel Food Cake Recipe:

Quantity: Makes 1 cake

Time: ~1 hour prep + ~1 hour to make + ~2+ hours of cooling

• 1 hour to bring ingredients to room temperature, preheat oven, and measure
• 20 minutes to make batter
• 40-50 minutes to bake
• ~2+ hours to cool

Special Equipment:

• A 9½" diameter x ~4¼" tall round pan with no non-stick coating and a removable bottom
• Stand mixer
• Small offset spatula

Ingredients:

All ingredients are given in grams to ensure a consistent result. I've included volume measures for quantities that are difficult to weigh out on some scales or that come pre-measured for convenience.

• 360 g of egg white (~10-12 Grade A Large eggs worth)*
• 120 g cake flour
• 113 g of powdered sugar
• 198 g of granulated sugar
• 1/2 Tbsp of cream of tartar
• 1/4 tsp fine table salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

* The fresher the eggs are, the more rise you will get out of your cake

You can convert these all into volume measures using this chart, but the recipe will be much less consistent.

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. DO NOT grease, flour, or line the pan.
2. Separate the eggs, taking care to avoid getting any yolk into the whites. Measure out 360 g of the whites and cover. Let the whites sit for ~1 hour to come to room temperature. The ideal temperature to whip a meringue is at room temperature.
3. While the egg whites come to room temperature and the oven preheats, measure out all the ingredients. Sift the cake flour and powdered sugar together in a bowl to remove any lumps.
4. Make sure that your stand mixer bowl is clean and does not have any oil or fat on it. Once at room temperature, place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer with a whisk attachment.
5. Mix on low speed until the first bubbles begin to form and the mixture begins to look a bit frothy.
6. Add the cream of tartar and the salt, and increase the speed to medium high.
7. Beat until all the whites become a foam that begins to hold some shape.
   
   
   
8. Turn the speed down to medium and slowly add in the granulated sugar. This should take ~30 seconds.
9. Add the vanilla and increase the speed to medium high.
10. Beat to the required meringue stiffness. For best results, whip until soft peaks form. You can continue whipping up until you see the very first firm peaks begin to form without any difference in the final result. (i.e. The range of ideal meringues stiffness is from soft to just firm peaks.)

    

    All perfectly good meringue stiffnesses.

    
    
11. Gently pour the meringue into a larger bowl, taking care to not deflate any of the meringue. This is to ensure that you have space to fold the batter without making a mess or overflowing your mixer bowl.
12. Gently fold in the powdered sugar and flour mixture in three additions. To fold, put the blade of a rubber spatula vertical, cut through the center of the bowl, and gently scrape up along the sides. Then rotate the bowl and repeat. After each addition, fold until ~3/4 of the mixture has been incorporated before adding the next addition. On the final addition, fold until the mixture is just fully incorporated, but take care not to over mix.
    
    
    
13. Transfer the mixture to the pan. I use a large tablespoon to gently scoop the mixture into the pan, making sure to fill any gaps.
14. Smooth the top of the cake with an offset spatula and clean any stray batter off the pan.
15. Insert an offset spatula vertically into the batter the full depth of the cake, and make a ring around the center of the cake. This will determine where your cake cracks on the top when it bakes.

    

    Put a ring on it.

    
    
16. Bake for 40-50 minutes (mine usually takes 47 minutes in my oven) until the center of the cake springs back when gently pressed. If your finger leaves an imprint, the cake needs more time to bake. If the cake feels firm and springs back, the cake is done.
17. Cool the cake upside down for at least two hours until fully cooled. Even though my pan has feet, I like to set it upside down on a cooling rack to keep the bottom of the pan from pressing down on the cake.
18. Release the cake from the pan using an offset spatula before serving. First remove it from the sides, and then remove it from the bottom. You can store the cake at room temperature wrapped in saran wrap for up to a week (though it is best fresh!).

Flavor Variations:

There are many flavor variations you can make with this recipe by substituting out or adding to the vanilla extract. You could add other flavorings like almond extract or orange blossom water. You will need to be careful if the flavoring has oils in it though. For example, citrus oils could inhibit the formation of the meringue so flavorings with oils or citrus zest should be folded in with the cake flour and powdered sugar. You could also add in a small amount of spices with the dry ingredients or substitute out some cake flour for cocoa powder. You can also add flavor by serving it with fresh fruits. I love to serve angel food cake with macerated strawberries and whipped cream.

Angel Food Cake Takeaways:

It has been a seven week long process (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) to make the perfect angel food cake. Let's review my main takeaways:

Angel food cake is all about technique. The final result depends on your meringue, how gently you have folded in the ingredients, and getting the perfect bake. These can take some practice to master. My first angel food cake was an under-baked food safety hazard that had to go straight to the trash, but each time I made it, my results improved!

You need a pan without a non-stick coating to make angel food cake. Unlike most cakes, there are no leavening agents (baking soda/baking powder) in angel food cake. Instead the rise comes entirely from incorporating air into the egg whites in a meringue (see week 4 to learn more about the science behind meringue). This structure is so delicate that it needs to be cooled upside down or it will collapse under its own weight. Because of this, you want the cake to stick to the inside of the pan. Typically cake recipes call for a non-stick pan that is some combination of greased, floured, and/or lined with parchment paper. But for angel food cake, you want a pan without a non-stick coating and you do not line, grease, nor flour the pan. To remove the cake from the pan, it is helpful for your pan have a removable bottom (otherwise you'll have to get creative).

Fresh eggs make for a taller, more tender cake. This is likely due to a combination of two factors. As egg whites age, they lose carbonic acid in the form of carbon dioxide that escapes through the porous shell (or into the container they are being stored in), making them more alkaline. Meringue is more stable in an acidic environment (see week 4), but the egg whites become more alkaline as they age, so using the same amount of cream of tartar with fresh eggs creates a more acidic environment. Older egg whites left in the fridge can also lose some water, which gives us less steam for the rise in baking. There was a significant difference between fresh and aged egg whites in my tests, so fresh eggs are definitely the way to go!

Determine doneness with the press test, not with bake time or a cake tester! Many angel food cake recipes call for a much shorter bake time than mine needed in my oven (e.g. 30-35 minutes versus 45-47 minutes) and a cake tester can come out clean before the cake is fully baked. The best way to tell when an angel food cake is done is by gently pressing on the top of the cake in the part farthest away from the edges. If your finger leaves an imprint, it needs more time, but if it is firm and springs back, then it should be done.

You don’t need to add water to get a tender, moist cake. Some people claim that adding extra water adds additional steam as the cake bakes, creating more lift and air pockets, but in a side by side comparison, the textures were identical and the cake without water had a better rise. Not adding water also gives you better control over the meringue stiffness.

Soft to just firm peaks is the ideal meringue stiffness. The longer you whip a meringue, the more protein bonds you make, forming a tighter network (see week 4). This is much like stretching out a spring. While whipping adds additional air, it also stretches the spring out more. When we are at stiff peaks, we have essentially stretched the springs to their fullest extent. At soft/firm peaks, the springs aren't fully stretched. For angel food cake, the stiff peak crowd argue that more air equals more rise, so the best rise comes from incorporating the maximum amount of air before baking through whipping to stiff peaks. Folks on the soft/firm peak side argue that if you stretch the springs out to their fullest extent, they can't stretch more during baking as the air trapped in the bubbles expands in the hot oven, leading to less rise. They also argue that a stiffer meringue is likely to get more air knocked out as you mix in the flour and remaining sugar because it is more difficult to mix. Putting all the meringue stiffnesses head to head, the answer here is definitive: whipping to stiff peaks gives you a tougher cake with less rise. Soft peaks to just firm peaks gives the best result: a tall, tender cake. If you whip to fully firm peaks you still get a great rise but a slightly less tender cake.

Use granulated sugar to make the meringue, but fold in powdered sugar with the flour. The sugar in angel food cake is divided in two with some of the sugar being incorporated into the meringue and the remaining sugar being folded in with the flour. Granulated sugar is key to making a meringue (see week 4), but using powdered sugar for the sugar that is added with the flour gives a better rise. Powdered sugar is lighter and clumps less when incorporating, reducing how much the meringue is deflated. There is also usually a small amount of cornstarch in powdered sugar to prevent it from clumping. The cornstarch can help stabilize the meringue further by absorbing some water.

Less flour results in less flavor. Less flour means less gluten and a slightly more tender cake, but cutting the flour too much can result in a cake that tastes sweet and eggy. Reducing the flour too much thus loses some of the depth of flavor in the cake.

350˚ F is just faster and better. You sometimes see people claim that baking angel food cake at 350˚ F sets the top of the cake too early and inhibits further rise, so it needs to be baked at 325˚ F. When I compared the two bake temperatures head to head, they had identical rises. The only difference? The cake baked at 325˚ F took longer and was slightly drier.