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Sun-and-Moon Cake
11 egg whites beaten stiff and frothy 1 1/4 cups sugar 3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar pinch salt 6 egg yolks 1 tablespoon cold water 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 1/4 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon almond extract Add cream of tartar to beaten egg whites, and fold in the sifted sugar. Beat egg yolks thick and lemon-colored, add water and salt to them. Take out half of white mixture and fold in the egg yolks with it. Add vanilla. Fold in 1/2 cup flour well sifted. To the egg white mixture left add the almond extract, and 3/4 cup of flour. Place in alternate layers in a well floured angel cake pan. Bake 1 hour in slow oven. To serve, break slices apart with two forks. Never cut a sponge or angel cake.
This is a two-tone tube cake — a white almond-scented angel batter layered with a yellow sponge — and it succeeds or fails on the handling of the egg foam. Nothing here is difficult, but the whites will not forgive being stirred.
- Slow ovenSet the oven to 300-325F. A tall egg-foam cake baked hotter than that sets a crust before the centre rises and then sinks; an hour at the lower end of that range should suit the tube pan called for.
- Cream of tartar timingThe recipe adds it to whites already beaten. Modern practice is to add it when the whites are frothy, before they build volume, so the foam is stabilised as it forms rather than deflated by late folding.
- "Stiff and frothy"Beat only to soft, glossy peaks that just hold their shape. Whites taken to dry, grainy stiffness cannot stretch as the cake rises and the crumb comes out coarse.
- Sugar and flourSift the sugar into the whites in several additions rather than all at once. Cake flour gives the finest crumb here; the two flour quantities, 1/2 cup for the yolk batter and 3/4 cup for the white, add up to the 1 1/4 cups listed.
- The panA well floured pan is what the original says, but an angel or sponge cake needs to grip the sides to climb. Use an ungreased, unfloured aluminium tube pan with a removable bottom and no non-stick coating.
- LayeringSpoon the two batters in alternating rings or dollops and leave them alone. Any swirling with a knife will slacken both foams; the marbling comes from the layering itself.
- CoolingInvert the pan immediately on its feet, or over the neck of a bottle, and leave until completely cold before releasing. A warm foam cake collapses under its own weight.
- Serving and yieldThe instruction to pull slices apart with two forks is sound — a knife compresses the crumb. A serrated knife used with a sawing motion and no downward pressure works as well. A cake of this size should give somewhere in the region of 12 to 16 servings.
- Leftover whites and yolksEleven whites to six yolks leaves five yolks over. Custard, mayonnaise or a curd will use them within a day or two if refrigerated.