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Angel Cake (Whites of eggs teaspoon cream)
Whites of 11 eggs 1 teaspoon cream of tartar 1½ cups granulated sugar 1 cup sifted flour 1 teaspoon flavoring Beat the eggs until light; add the cream of tartar and beat to a stiff froth; then add the sugar gradually. Fold in the flour after it has been sifted five times; add the vanilla and pour the mixture into an unbuttered angel-cake pan. Bake in a moderate oven forty-five or fifty minutes; turn the pan upside down and let it stand until the cake falls out.
SPONGE CAKE No. 1 6 large eggs 11 ounces granulated sugar 3¾ ounces sifted flour 1/2 lemon Pinch of baking powder Pinch of salt Beat the yolks and the whites separately until very light. Into the yolks beat the sugar; then add the lemon, salt, baking powder and half the flour. Fold in half of the whites; add the remainder of the flour, then the remainder of the whites. Pour into a greased pan and bake in a slow oven for forty-five minutes or one hour.
SPONGE CAKE No. 2 5 eggs 1 cup sugar Juice and grated rind of 1/2 lemon Pinch of salt 1 cup flour Beat the yolks until light; add the sugar gradually, then the lemon. Beat the whites until stiff and dry; cut them into the first mixture; then sift and fold in the flour, but do not stir the mixture. 4 eggs 1 cup sugar SPONGE CAKE No. 3 6 tablespoons water 1 cup flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon vanilla Beat the yolks of the eggs and the sugar thoroughly; add the water; then the sifted flour and the whites alternately, and the baking powder and vanilla last. Pour into a greased Turk's head and bake in a quick oven about fifteen minutes.
Four foam cakes in one page, with the oven temperatures given only as words and the baking times varying wildly. The angel cake is the anchor; the sponges are variations on the same principle of egg foam carrying the whole structure.
- Oven temperatures"Moderate" is about 350F, "slow" about 300-325F, "quick" about 425-450F. For the angel cake, 350F for the forty-five to fifty minutes given is right; the first sponge at 300-325F for the full hour will dry out unless the pan is deep, so check at 45 minutes.
- Eleven egg whitesThat is roughly 1 1/3 to 1 1/2 cups of whites from modern large eggs. Eggs of the period were less uniform and often smaller, so it is safer to measure by volume than to count. Whites at room temperature whip to greater volume.
- Sifting flour five timesNot a flourish. Repeated sifting aerates soft flour and breaks up clumps so it can be folded into the foam in seconds. Cake flour, sifted two or three times, does the same work; all-purpose will give a tougher crumb.
- The hinge: an unbuttered panAn angel cake climbs by gripping the sides of the tube pan. Any grease and it will slip and collapse. The same logic governs the inverted cooling: the cake must hang until completely cold or it compresses under its own weight.
- Cream of tartarHere it is an acid stabiliser for the whites, not a leavener. Add it once the whites are frothy but before they hold peaks. It also keeps the crumb white.
- Sponge Cake No. 1 by weight11 ounces sugar is about 1 1/2 cups; 3 3/4 ounces sifted flour is a scant cup. It is the only recipe on this page given by weight rather than measure, and the proportions are worth keeping as written.
- Sponge Cake No. 2 has no baking timeThe original stops at the mixing. Treat it as a 350F cake in a greased 9-inch tube or two 8-inch layers, 25-35 minutes, until the top springs back.
- Turk's headA fluted ring or turban mould, of the same family as the later Bundt pan. Grease it thoroughly for Sponge No. 3, which unlike the angel cake needs to release.
- Fifteen minutes at high heatSponge No. 3 is a thin, quick-baked batter. At 425F in a ring mould it will be done in 15-20 minutes; a deeper pan needs a lower oven and longer, or the outside sets before the centre.
- YieldThe angel cake batter suits a standard 10-inch tube pan and would serve roughly 10-12. The sponges are each about a single-cake quantity; no pan size is given in the original except the Turk's head for No. 3.
Angel cake belongs to a distinctly American family of fatless foam cakes that spread through printed cookbooks in the second half of the nineteenth century, made practical by two things arriving together: cheap, finely milled white flour and cheap refined sugar. It is often said to have been popularised by Pennsylvania German households, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented. What is certain is that an eleven-white cake presumes a kitchen with eleven spare yolks to use up, which is why cookbooks of this period cluster angel cake next to sponge cakes and custards and gold cakes: the sequence is an economy of eggs as much as a run of recipes. Beating that quantity of whites stiff by hand with a wire whisk was serious labour, and the appearance of the rotary egg beater in ordinary kitchens is often credited with helping these cakes become common home baking rather than a professional's showpiece, though the connection is more commonplace than established.