Angel Food Cake

Angel Food Cake Secret Weapon

I was all set to make this cake last week. I had glanced at the recipe earlier in the week and thought I had everything I needed. We had 9 eggs in the fridge which I thought would be plenty, the recipe called for 12, hence this entry is a little later than usual. It is really only the egg whites that are needed so instead of separating a whole carton of eggs I turned to the angel food cake secret weapon (not actually that secret) a carton of egg whites. One carton contains 16 egg whites, enough to make the cake and a nice omelette to go with it. If for some reason you really want to separate the eggs yourself, the leftover yolks can be frozen in an ice cube tray for later use.

Angel food cake is based on an egg white foam created by thousands of bubbles. In order to make bubbles in a liquid there needs to be something to break the surface tension of the liquid. Take water for instance, it will not create stable bubbles on its own, this is because the water molecules are too attracted to each other. Add soap and the surface tension is reduced allowing bubbles to form. Bubbles are round because a sphere has the least surface area of any shape and thus is the easiest to form. Egg whites contain a good deal of protein and when broken up, by physical agitation, they allow bubbles to form. These bubbles gives angel food cake its lightness and its lift, as there are no chemical or biological leaveners (baking powder, baking soda, yeast) in the recipe.

Egg White Foam

One of the famous qualities of this cake is that it is fat free, no butter, no oil, no nothing and I can't say that the fat is greatly missed. Its even pretty low in calories, approximately 173 calories for 1/12 of the cake (that's according to http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php, pretty cool site). The cake is pretty sweet and almost reminds me of a marshmallow in flavour. The cake on its own is pretty good but it really shines when paired with something else like jam. Toppings are great but they can quickly send the low-calorie and fat free status out the window.

A few notes on pans: this cake is supposed to be baked in a tube pan, this was not a problem. The problem occurred when the recipe said to turn the tube pan upside down to let it cool. This was supposed to stop the cake from falling and loosing its lightness. After about a minute upside down the cake fell right out of the pan therefore I am not sure if the upside down part is a good idea. Secondly, in order for the cake to "climb" the walls of the pan during cooking the pan should not be greased. As you can imagine the outside layer of the cake sticks to the pan, leaving a nice mess. I shouldn't complain too much, a soak in some hot water removed the stuck on cake without too much effort.

Final thoughts: when I go for dessert I want something really rich and dense, so angel food cake is not my favourite dessert in the world. It is a viable option for those with a sweet tooth looking to watch their waste lines, but beware of excess toppings!

Recipe: Angel Food Cake