Angel food cake

The first time I had Angel food cake was in the summer of 2019, after my husband Seb found a Betty Crocker Angel food cake box “very appealing” in the supermarket. It certainly looked very interesting: white and airy. I was super curious to find out what it tasted like. We had never heard of this type of cake back in Argentina.

It was only when we got home that I learned that I needed a special tin for this cake. Luckily, I had a non-stick bundt cake pan, and after some Googling, I confirmed it could replace the original Angel food cake pan just fine.

I made the cake following the box instructions (including trying to figure out how to rest the cake upside down… 🤔). Tasting time comes… I loved the cake. Seb… not so much. He didn’t appreciate the almond flavoring.

A couple of months later, I decided to make this cake from scratch. I found a simple enough recipe on Tasty and it turned out beautifully. Needless to say, I don’t use almond extract in the homemade version.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups egg whites
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Sift the flour and 1/2 cup of the sugar in a medium bowl. Reserve.
3. Measure the egg whites (I buy pasteurized egg whites, refer to the original Tasty recipe if you have whole eggs – you’ll need to use cream of tartar).
4. In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the egg whites, vanilla extract and salt. Beat in medium speed until soft peaks form.
5. Increase the mixer speed and gradually incorporate the remaining 1 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time. Keep beaing until stiff peaks form.
6. Carfully sift the flour and sugar mixture into the egg whites mixture. Do this incrementally, 1/4 cup at a time. Fold softly with a spatula until there are no clumps left. Be careful not to overmix.
7. Transfer the batter into a non-greased non-stick bundt cake pan.
8. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the cake has risen and the top is golden brown.
9. While th cake bakes, prepare a wire rack and devise an “inverted cake holder”, as I like to call it. You need to invert the cake when it comes out of the oven, so find something you can use to keep it in place. I normally use the lid of my dutch oven, which has a flat handle (I rest the center of the inverted pan on the lid handle).
10. Remove the cake from the oven and invert immediately.
11. Let it cool for at least 45 minutes before removing the cake from the pan. To remove, run a spatula (or something soft as to not ruin the non-stick surface of the pan) along the outer edge of the pan.
12. Serve with berries!