Tremendous Angel Food Cake
Prep
25m
Cook
40m
Total
65m
Bigly says
Folks. Angel Food Cake. The CLOUD cake. The most impressive cake at the table without question, it's not even close, it's a SLAUGHTER. You bring an angel food cake to a dinner, people look at you differently. They look at you with respect. With awe. They say, 'How did you do that, how is it that tall, how is it that light, what magic is this,' and you say, calmly, 'It's just egg whites,' and they don't believe you. They can't believe you. They go home and try it and fail — because they don't have the recipe. MY recipe. The one you're reading right now. For free.
Here's what nobody tells you — and at BiglyEats we tell you things — angel food cake has NO butter. Zero. None. No oil either. No yolks. Just egg whites, sugar, flour, and a little cream of tartar to hold the whites together. That's the cake. That's the WHOLE cake. And from those four ingredients you get this towering, fluffy, snow-white miracle. Food chemists agree — and I've talked to food chemists, very smart people, a guy with a PhD once spent 90 minutes explaining the protein structure of a beaten egg white to me, 90 minutes, worth every second — and they will all tell you the same thing: it's the air. The cake is mostly AIR. You are eating a sweet, structural cloud. Astonishing.
The trick — and this is where the so-called experts blow it, they BLOW it, they take a perfectly good batter and they ruin it — is folding. You FOLD the flour in. You do NOT stir. You do NOT whisk. You fold with a rubber spatula, gently, like you are tucking the cake into bed, like you respect the cake, because if you don't respect the cake the cake will not respect you, and an angel food cake that doesn't respect you will COLLAPSE in the oven into a sad pancake-shaped puddle and you will deserve it. Treat the egg whites like they're delicate, because they are, and you'll have the greatest angel food cake of your life. Believe me.
Ingredients
- 1 cupcake flour(cake flour, NOT all-purpose, do not substitute)
- 1.5 cupsgranulated sugar, divided
- 1/4 tspkosher salt
- 12large egg whites, room temperature(save the yolks for something else, don't be wasteful)
- 1.5 tspcream of tartar
- 1.5 tspvanilla extract
- 1/2 tspalmond extract(small amount, big difference)
Steps
- 1
Heat the oven to 350°F. Have a 10-inch ungreased tube pan ready. Do NOT grease the pan — the cake needs to grip the sides to climb.
- 2
Sift the cake flour, 3/4 cup of the sugar, and the salt together three times. Three times. This is how you get a fine crumb.
- 3
In a large, scrupulously clean bowl (no grease, no yolk, nothing), beat the egg whites with a mixer on medium until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating.
- 4
Increase the speed to medium-high. Slowly stream in the remaining 3/4 cup sugar, a tablespoon at a time, while beating. Continue until the whites hold glossy, stiff peaks that bend slightly at the tip — about 5-7 more minutes.
- 5
Beat in the vanilla and almond extracts on low for a few seconds.
- 6
Sift one-third of the flour mixture over the egg whites and fold it in gently with a large rubber spatula using a down-and-over motion. Repeat with the second third, then the final third. Stop the moment no streaks of flour remain.
- 7
Spoon the batter into the ungreased tube pan. Run a butter knife through the batter in a circle to break up any large air pockets, then smooth the top.
- 8
Bake 35-45 minutes, until the top is golden brown and springs back when lightly pressed.
- 9
Immediately invert the pan over the neck of a tall bottle (or onto its built-in feet if it has them) and let cool completely upside down, about 1.5 hours. This stops the cake from collapsing.
- 10
Run a thin knife around the edges and the center tube to release. Tap the cake out onto a serving plate.
One more thing
Serve it with fresh berries and barely-sweetened whipped cream. Or a lemon glaze. Or nothing at all — nothing at all is sometimes the right answer, the cake is the answer, the cake is enough, you don't need to dress it up like it's going to a wedding. People will eat this and they will believe in angels. They will write hymns about it. Maybe. I don't know that for a fact but it could happen. You're welcome.
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