Angel Cake
9 egg-whites 1 teaspoon cream of tartar 1 cup sugar 7/8 cup flour 1/8 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla Beat the whites of the eggs to a froth, add the cream of tartar and beat till the eggs are stiff but not dry, then gradually add the sugar (which has been sifted twice), beating after additions. Sift the flour with the salt five times and fold it into the mixture. Add the vanilla. Bake in an ungreased angel-cake tin in a very moderate oven (250-320 degrees F.) for forty-five minutes. Be careful not to jar or disturb while baking. Remove from the oven, turn the pan upside down on a wire netting or with a knife handle or some other small article inserted under the edge of the pan to permit steam to escape, and let it stand until the cake falls out. Ice placed on the bottom of the tin will hasten the release of the cake.
A classic fat-free foam cake that stands or falls on the egg whites and the untouched pan. Nothing here needs modernising except the oven range and a few measures.
- The hinge: never grease the panThe batter climbs the ungreased sides as it bakes and that grip is the only structure holding it up. Use a plain aluminium tube pan with a removable bottom, not a nonstick or silicone one, and do not butter, oil or flour it.
- Oven temperatureThe stated 250-320F is a wide bracket from an era of uncertain ovens. A modern oven set to the top of that bracket, around 320-325F, should bring the cake in at about the stated forty-five minutes; it is done when the top springs back and a skewer comes out clean.
- Egg whitesNine large whites is about 1 1/8 cups, or 270 g. Separate them cold, then let them come to room temperature before beating, and make certain no yolk or grease reaches the bowl.
- SugarSifting granulated sugar twice was a way of breaking up lumps and coarse crystals. Superfine (caster) sugar dissolves faster into the foam and gives a finer crumb; use the same 1 cup.
- Flour7/8 cup is 1 cup less 2 tablespoons, roughly 100 g of soft cake flour. The five siftings are not fussiness for its own sake: they aerate the flour so it can be folded in with the fewest possible strokes.
- Cream of tartarIt stabilises the foam and keeps the crumb white. Substitutes such as lemon juice will acidify the whites but are generally reckoned less reliable at holding the structure.
- Do not jar the ovenAn underset foam collapses easily. Leave the door shut for the first 30 minutes and set the pan on a low rack so the top does not scorch.
- Cooling upside downInvert immediately and leave the cake hanging until completely cold, an hour or more. The recipe's own method -- resting the inverted pan on wire netting, or propping the rim with a knife handle so steam escapes -- works; a centre tube slipped over a bottle neck is another option if the pan has no feet.
- The ice trickA cold pan bottom contracts the cake slightly and helps it drop free. A damp cold cloth laid on the base does the same. If it still clings, run a thin knife around the sides and tube.
- YieldThe recipe does not state a pan size; nine whites makes a modest tube cake. Cut it with a serrated knife or two forks; a chef's knife compresses the crumb.