Angel Cake
One cup of flour; one and one-half cups of granulated sugar; one teaspoon cream of tartar; one teaspoon of vanilla; eleven eggs (whites). Sift the flour with the cream of tartar five times. Sift the sugar twice, and then turn it into a bowl, add the whites of the eggs, beaten to a stiff froth, and commence to stir from the bottom upward, gradually adding the flour, and stirring the same way until the batter is well mixed. Add the vanilla, turn into an ungreased tin, and bake for forty-five minutes. Be careful not to jar or disturb while baking. Remove from the oven, turn the pan upside down, and let it stand until the cake falls out. Ice placed on the bottom of the tin will hasten the release of the cake. SPONGE CAKE, No. I-Six eggs; five eggs' weight in sugar; three eggs' weight in flour; one tablespoon of lemon extract; one teaspoon of baking powder; one-half teaspoon of salt. Weigh five of the eggs and allow an equal weight of sugar and in the same way take the weight of three eggs in flour. Separate the whites of the eggs from the yolks, beat the yolks until light, and gradually add the sugar; then beat the whites to a stiff, dry froth, and add them to the sweetened yolks, stirring gently until the whole is well blended. Sift the salt, baking powder and flour twice, and gradually add to the eggs, stirring only long enough to mix thoroughly. Then put in the flavoring and bake for forty minutes in two well-oiled tins of moderate size. Sponge cake is really better when torn apart, but as it is rather unsightly when thus treated, the best housewives prefer to cut it with a very sharp knife. SPONGE CAKE, No. 2-Ingredients: Two cups of powdered sugar; two cups of flour (sifted); two teaspoons of baking powder; four eggs; three-fourths teacup of boiling water; a pinch of salt; lemon or vanilla to taste. Beat the whites and the yolks of the eggs separately. Add the boiling water after all the other ingredients have been mixed, and bake in a moderate oven.
Three cakes run together in one block of type: an angel cake leavened only by beaten whites, and two sponge cakes, the first measured by the weight of its own eggs. None of them gives an oven temperature.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature. For the angel cake, modern practice is about 325F for the stated forty-five minutes; higher heat tends to dry and crack a tall foam cake. "A moderate oven," which the book calls for only in Sponge Cake No. 2, is usually read as about 350F.
- Eleven whitesEgg size varied and still varies. Eleven whites should come to roughly 1 1/3 cups (about 11 oz); measure by volume rather than counting shells.
- Cream of tartarSifting it with the flour is the older method and it works, but modern practice beats the cream of tartar into the whites at the soft-foam stage, where it stabilizes the meringue directly. That is the hinge of the whole cake: whites beaten to stiff but still glossy peaks, not dry and crumbling.
- Sifting the sugarPeriod granulated sugar was coarser and less uniform than ours. The two siftings are there to break up lumps and fine the crystals; superfine (caster) sugar accomplishes the same thing and dissolves into the whites faster.
- Folding, not stirring"Stir from the bottom upward" is folding. Add the flour in three or four additions with a wide spatula and stop the moment no streaks remain, or the foam deflates and the cake bakes dense.
- The ungreased tin and the iceAn angel cake climbs by clinging to the pan wall, so nothing is greased and no nonstick pan should be used. Invert immediately on the pan's feet or over a bottle neck and leave it until cold. The book's trick of setting ice against the pan bottom presumably works by cooling and contracting the metal to loosen the crumb; a thin knife run around the wall is more reliable.
- Sponge Cake No. 1 by weightAn egg in the shell weighs about 2 oz, so five eggs' weight of sugar is roughly 10 oz (about 1 1/3 to 1 1/2 cups) and three eggs' weight of flour about 6 oz (1 1/3 cups). Weigh your own eggs and match them on a scale rather than trusting the conversion.
- Tins of moderate sizeTwo 8-inch round pans, lined with parchment. Sponge batter this lean sticks badly, and "well-oiled" alone is optimistic.
- Boiling water in No. 2The hot water goes in last and thins the batter so it spreads; add it in a slow stream while stirring, and get the cake into the oven at once, since the baking powder is already working.
- YieldThe recipe names no pan; the quantities suit a 10-inch tube pan and serve about 12. Sponge Cake No. 1 is baked in two tins, giving two layers.
Angel cake — angel food, in the name that stuck — is generally traced to the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, and it is usually said to have depended on two things arriving at once: cheap fine white flour from roller mills, and the rotary egg beater, which made a dozen whites whipped by hand a chore rather than an ordeal. Before those, a cake raised on nothing but egg foam took considerable labor; after them it became a standard of household skill, which is why cookbooks of this era print it with such precise instructions about sifting and about not jarring the oven door. The tall central-tube pan was sold specifically for it. The Butterick book, a publication of a pattern and fashion house, happens to set angel cake immediately beside two sponge cakes.