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Angel Cake (Whites eggs cup flour teaspoon)
Whites 8 eggs 3/4 cup flour 1 teaspoon cream of tartar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup sugar 3/4 teaspoon vanilla Beat whites of eggs until frothy; add cream of tartar, and continue beating until eggs are stiff; then add sugar gradually. Fold in flour mixed with salt and sifted four times, and add vanilla. Bake forty-five to fifty minutes in an unbuttered angel-cake pan. After cake has risen and begins to brown, cover with a buttered paper.
A plain late-Victorian angel food: eight whites, a cup of sugar, three-quarters of a cup of flour, and no fat or chemical leavening at all. The original gives a time but no temperature, which is the one thing a modern cook has to supply.
- Oven temperatureFor a bake of forty-five to fifty minutes, a slow-to-moderate oven of about 325F suits it. Much hotter and the crust can set before the interior has finished expanding, which risks the cake sinking as it cools.
- The buttered paperThe instruction to lay a buttered paper over the top once the cake has risen and coloured is a heat shield, not a decoration. Parchment does the same job and keeps the crust from going hard and dark over the long bake.
- FlourSift the flour four times as directed, and use cake flour if you have it. The repeated sifting is the only thing lightening this batter apart from the whites; much household flour of the period was softer than modern all-purpose, which can give a slightly tougher crumb.
- Cream of tartarNot optional. It stabilises the foam and keeps the whites from weeping in the oven, and the acid helps give angel cake its very white crumb. One teaspoon for eight whites is in line with usual practice.
- Sugar graduallyAdd the cup of sugar a spoonful at a time once the whites are stiff, and stop while the meringue still holds a firm peak. Dumping it in at once deflates the foam and no amount of further beating brings it back.
- Unbuttered panThe pan must be dry and ungreased so the batter can climb the sides. Wash and dry a tube pan before use if it has held anything oily, and do not use a nonstick one.
- CoolingInvert the pan as soon as it leaves the oven and leave the cake hanging until completely cold, then loosen with a thin knife. Turning it out warm will compress the crumb.
- YieldFills a 9-inch tube pan (it will sit shallow in a 10-inch) and cuts into eight to ten wedges. Pull it apart with a fork or use a serrated knife; a straight blade drags.