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Angel Cake (Egg whites teaspoon lemon)
4 egg whites 1 teaspoon lemon juice 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1/3 cup sifted pastry flour A few grains salt Add the salt to the whites, and beat them till frothy. Add the lemon juice and continue beating till the eggs are very stiff. Then beat in the sugar, adding it a little at a time, and beat till the mixture is as stiff as the mixture can be made. Beat in the vanilla, then carefully fold in the flour. Put into a small angel cake tin, the inside of which has been wet with cold water. Bake from forty to fifty minutes in a cool oven. When removed from the oven, turn it upside down to cool in the pan. When cold, run a knife around the cake to remove it from the pan.
To make this cake a little more tender two tablespoons of oil can be beaten into the batter just before folding in the flour.
If this batter is baked in the form of cup cakes and the cakes are frosted and sprinkled with cocoanut, they may be called Angel Cakelets.
A quarter-size angel cake built on four whites rather than the usual ten or twelve. Everything depends on the meringue, so read the notes on the pan and the oven before starting.
- Oven temperaturePeriod usage of "cool oven" varies, and the recipe gives no figure; somewhere in the region of 275-325F is the usual modern reading. At the low end the cake will need the full fifty minutes; it is done when the top springs back and a skewer comes out dry.
- Never grease the tinWetting the inside with cold water is deliberate, not a substitute for greasing. The batter must climb the ungreased sides to rise; any fat or non-stick coating on the pan will keep it flat.
- Pan sizeThe recipe says only "a small angel cake tin." Four whites will not fill a standard 10-inch tube, and spread thin in one the cake bakes dry, so a smaller tube pan is wanted.
- Lemon juice does the work of cream of tartarThe acid stabilises the foam and keeps the crumb white. Do not omit it, and use a scrupulously clean, grease-free bowl -- any trace of yolk or oil in the whites will stop them stiffening.
- Folding the flourA third of a cup of pastry flour is very little, which is why it must be sifted and folded in a spoonful at a time with a light hand. Cake flour is the closest modern equivalent; all-purpose gives a tougher crumb.
- The optional oilTwo tablespoons of oil beaten into a meringue will deflate it noticeably, producing something closer to a chiffon cake -- softer, denser, less lofty. Fold it in rather than beating if you try it.
- Cooling upside downInvert the pan the moment it leaves the oven and leave it until stone cold, propped on a bottle neck if the tin has no feet. Cooling right side up collapses the structure while the crumb is still setting.
- CakeletsBaked in cup cake tins the same batter will need considerably less time than the full cake; no time is given in the original, so check early and often. Line the cups with paper rather than greasing them.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; it is a small cake, and the number of cup cakes will depend on the size of the tins.