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Angels' Food Cake
Whites of eleven eggs, one and one-half tumblers granulated sugar, sifted twice, one tumbler flour, one teaspoon vanilla, one teaspoon cream tartar; sift flour four times, then add cream tartar and sift again; sift sugar before measuring; beat eggs to a stiff froth; add sugar lightly, then the flour very gently, then vanilla; bake forty minutes in a moderate oven, try with a broom splint; turn pan upside down to cool; the pan should have tin feet about one inch deep on each corner of the pan, so that when it is turned over to cool it can rest on the feet that the air may circulate freely under it; must not butter the pan; bake in a pan with a tube in it.
A classic foam cake that depends entirely on air beaten into the whites, so the handling matters more than the ingredient list. Two details in the original text carry the whole recipe: the pan is never greased, and the cake cools upside down.
- The tumblerA tumbler here is a drinking glass used as a measure, generally around 8 fluid ounces, so one tumbler of flour is roughly a cup and one and a half tumblers of sugar roughly a cup and a half. Tumblers were not standardised, so the measure is genuinely approximate; weighing is safer, at about 4 oz (115 g) flour and 10-11 oz (300 g) sugar.
- Ungreased pan, and whyThe batter must grip the sides to climb as it bakes. Any fat in the tube pan and the cake will slip back on itself and bake dense. Do not line it with paper either.
- Cooling upside downThe tin feet described in the original are the raised legs found on old angel-cake pans. A modern tube pan without feet can be inverted over the neck of a bottle. The cake sets as it cools and will collapse under its own weight if left the right way up.
- Moderate ovenRead that as 350F (175C). Some cooks prefer 325F (165C) for a taller, more evenly pale crumb; at 350F check at 30 to 35 minutes rather than waiting the full forty.
- Broom splintA straw pulled from a corn broom was the period skewer. Use a thin wooden skewer, and judge by the cake springing back when pressed as much as by the skewer coming out clean.
- The eleven whitesEleven large whites is about 1 1/3 cups (330 ml). Whites separate more cleanly cold but whip higher at room temperature, so separate them straight from the refrigerator and let them stand half an hour. A trace of yolk or grease will keep them from stiffening.
- Cream of tartarOne teaspoon for this many whites is on the low side by current practice; 1 1/4 teaspoons gives a more stable foam. Add it to the whites once they are foamy rather than sifting it with the flour, which is the modern order and works better.
- Folding"Lightly" and "very gently" are doing real work. Sift the flour over the meringue in three or four additions and fold with a spatula, cutting down and turning over, until just no streaks remain.
- YieldA 10-inch tube pan, 12 to 16 servings. Cut with a serrated knife or pull apart with two forks; a straight blade compresses the crumb.
Angel food cake belongs to the last quarter of the nineteenth century in America, when three things came together: cheap finely milled white flour, granulated sugar refined enough to sift, and the geared rotary egg beater, which made beating eleven whites to a stiff froth far quicker than beating by hand. The name refers to the pale, almost weightless crumb, and in later books it is often set beside devil's food, its dark rich opposite. Recipes of this kind are sometimes traced to Pennsylvania Dutch kitchens, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented. Footed tube pans of the sort described here were sold for cakes of this kind, and a household making it would have had eleven yolks left over, which may be why gold cake, custards and mayonnaise often sit nearby in books of this period.