Angel Cake
cup pastry flour Few grains salt teaspoon cream of tartar 1 teaspoon vanilla Place the egg-whites on a platter and beat with a wire beater until foaming; add cream of tartar and continue beating until they are stiff. Add the sugar gradually by folding it into the egg mixture with a spatula or cake spoon, then fold in the dry materials, flour and salt, that have been sifted together four times. Lastly add the vanilla. Bake in a greased tube pan from 45 minutes to 1 hour in a slow oven at a temperature of 300°F. to 325°F. 1 pound (2 cups) shortening 1 pound (2 cups) light brown sugar 7 eggs 1 pound (4 cups) flour 2 teaspoons mace 2 teaspoons cinnamon
A plain early-twentieth-century angel food: whites, sugar, cream of tartar and a small amount of pastry flour, leavened entirely by air. The method is sound, though a couple of the instructions run against current practice.
- Do not grease the panA tube pan for angel food must be bare metal and ungreased so the batter can grip the sides as it climbs. Greasing is the one direction here to ignore; it will limit the rise and encourage the cake to slump on cooling.
- The ovenThe recipe gives its own numbers, 300°F to 325°F, which is on the low side of modern practice for angel food. Many cooks now use 325°F to 350°F for 35 to 45 minutes; at 300°F expect the full hour and a paler crust.
- Proportions to expectAngel food formulas of this period run to something on the order of 10 to 12 egg whites, about a cup of sifted sugar and a cup of pastry flour, though they vary from book to book. Judge the quantities against a comparable modern formula before you begin.
- Pastry flourPastry flour is lower in protein than all-purpose. Cake flour is the nearest supermarket substitute; if you have only all-purpose, remove 2 tablespoons per cup and replace them with cornstarch.
- Cream of tartarAbout 1 teaspoon for a full batch. It is not flavouring but acid, and it stabilises the foam and keeps the crumb white; without it the whites weep and the cake is denser.
- Beating the whites"Stiff" here means stiff but still glossy and slightly moist. Whites beaten to a dry, granular stage break when the flour goes in and the cake bakes short.
- Sifting four timesNot fussiness. Sifting flour with the salt aerates it so it can be folded through a fragile foam in a few strokes rather than many, which is what preserves the volume.
- CoolingInvert the pan as soon as it leaves the oven and leave the cake hanging until completely cold, then loosen with a thin knife. The structure sets as it cools and will compress under its own weight if the cake rests upright.
- YieldA standard 10-inch tube pan gives 10 to 12 servings. Cut with a serrated knife or pull apart with two forks; a straight blade compacts the crumb.
Angel cake arrived in American cookbooks in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and depended on two things becoming ordinary: a reliable wire egg beater and cheap, finely refined white sugar. Before those, whipping a dozen whites to a stiff foam by hand with a fork or a bundle of twigs was a serious labour, which is part of why the cake carried such prestige on a tea table. Devil's food, the later of the two, is generally understood to have been named as the dark chocolate opposite of angel cake rather than the other way round. Cream of tartar, a by-product of winemaking widely sold in groceries, is what made the recipe dependable in a home kitchen, and the insistence on pastry flour and repeated sifting reflects a period when flour strength varied a good deal from sack to sack.