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Angel Food Cake
1 C egg whites-8 to 10 eggs ¾ t cream of tartar 14 t salt 3/4 t vanilla extract 14 t rose or almond extract 14 C granulated sugar, sifted 1 C Swans Down flour, sifted once, measured and sifted four times. Add salt to egg whites and beat until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat until whites are stiff enough to hold up in peaks, but not dry. Fold in the sugar, one Tat a time. Add flavoring. Fold in the flour in the same manner as the sugar. Pour into a patented cake tin, and bake at 325 degrees for an hour. Be sure that the oven is thoroughly heated before putting the cake into it. Invert tin for at least an hour after removing cake from oven. Remove from tin with broad-bladed knife. Use ¼ C less sugar if icing is to be placed on cake. Mrs. R. M. Dillon. 14 C egg whites
A standard 1930s-40s angel food built on a cup of whites and a cup of cake flour. The proportions are conventional enough that the garbled fractions can be read with confidence against the method.
- Reading the fractionsThe cream of tartar is 3/4 teaspoon; salt and the rose or almond extract are 1/4 teaspoon each. The vanilla is written out clearly as 3/4 teaspoon. The sugar is 1 1/4 cups, and the closing note asks for 1/4 cup less if the cake is to be iced.
- Swans DownA brand of soft-wheat cake flour, still sold. Any cake flour works; do not substitute all-purpose, which has too much protein and will toughen the crumb. The repeated sifting is not fussiness -- it aerates and prevents lumps that will not disperse in a foam.
- "A patented cake tin"Almost certainly a tube pan; such pans were often made with a removable bottom and with feet on the rim for inverting, though the recipe says only that the cake is loosened out with a broad-bladed knife. Never grease it: the batter must climb the ungreased wall to reach full height.
- The hingeBeat the whites only to peaks that just hold and still look glossy. Once they go dry and grainy the foam cannot stretch in the oven and the cake will fall or bake short and rubbery.
- FoldingSugar goes in one tablespoon at a time, flour the same way -- some twenty additions of sugar and sixteen of flour. It is slow, but folding large amounts at once knocks out the air you just beat in.
- Oven325F is right as written, and the instruction to preheat thoroughly matters more here than in most cakes. An hour is the outside limit; start testing at 40 to 45 minutes, when the top springs back and a skewer comes out clean.
- Cooling upside downInvert immediately and leave for at least an hour, resting the pan feet or the tube neck on a bottle. A hot angel food will collapse under its own weight if cooled right side up.
- Egg whitesOne cup is about 8 large whites. Separate them cold, then let them come to room temperature before beating for greater volume, and make sure the bowl and beaters carry no trace of fat or yolk.
- YieldOne 10-inch tube cake, 12 to 16 slices. Cut with a serrated knife using a sawing motion, or with two forks pulled apart, rather than pressing down with a blade.
Angel food belongs to the American cake canon of the late nineteenth century, a period when, by the usual explanation, reliable rotary egg beaters and cheap refined sugar made a fat-free foam cake practical for home bakers rather than an ordeal. The brand-name flour is a period marker too. Swans Down was heavily promoted through the 1920s and 30s with recipe pamphlets specifically for angel food and sponge cakes, and home cooks came to write the brand into their own handwritten cards as though it were an ingredient category in itself.