Week 20, January 3, 2011: Continued... Angel Food Cake

recipe from joyofbaking.com

So, you know that I <<heart33 sponge cake.  Between tres leches and sponge cake with raspberry whipped cream, I've had a good time with it.  That being said, the obvious question would be, "if you've made peace with sponge cake, why bother trying angel food cake?"

The answer is simple: this is cake30 and my goal is to make killer cake and to try everything until it works.  Do I think that I'm going to use all of these recipes again?  Absolutely not.  If we take a trip down memory lane, I'll give you a glimpse into what I've made a second time or will make again:

Week 1: white cake with cream cheese frosting- I've made this at least twice since
Week 3: coconut cake with lemon curd and seven minute frosting- it's heavenly
Week 9: pumpkin spice cake-- fall favorite
Week 10: pumpkin cheesecake-- pumpkin pie meets cheesecake- everyone wins
Week 11: german chocolate cake with coconut pecan frosting
Week 12: Tres Leches-- I could eat sweetened condensed milk for a living and teach spanish- 'nuff said.
Week 17: Clementine Torte
Week 19: Chocolate and Cranberry Cheesecake
Week 20: gingerbread cake
Angel food cake? That remains to be seen.

I remember dieting all through my youth and that as long as we weren't on a no carb diet, angel food cake seemed acceptable to eat.  That makes sense- all of it's fat comes from a dozen egg whites.  Besides that, it's sugar, flour, salt, cream of tartar, vanilla and almond extracts.  We know my track record with egg whites, so let's see how this one goes...

Angel food cakes are a strange beast and I felt like I was in Muppet labs this weekend (you know, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant/ guinea pig Beaker sharpening bananas or detecting gorillas).  The issue with cake is in needing to know what you're supposed to in order not to incur their wrath, sort of like trying to tap dance around a sleeping dragon and a lot of the time it feels less like logic and more like Muppets.  First issue: eggs.  Lots and lots of eggs.  I made three of these babies and cut down the egg count to ten for each, but that's not including the three eggs each needed for the three batches of lemon curd--I substituted extra yolk in for three of the eggs and got away with using 36 eggs in under 24 hours.

So one question remains, what am I going to do with the rest of these?

Back to the sleeping dragon: first you deal with the egg whites.  Ang was kind and gave me one of her medium/large mixing bowls that she doesn't use anymore, the the whites had some good room to expand.

As egg whites and I are now BFFs, they got glossy quickly with all of the cream of tartar, lemon juice, salt, sugar and vanilla extract I added... the original recipe calls for almond extract, but it made the first batter really bitter... not a fan.

I've got to add, the new bowl has a lid for mixing, which would be super handy if I didn't love having to clean egg white and whipping cream off of the peninsula's grounding wall every time I baked.

Luckily for me, I do.

Next, I had to sift in the sugar and flour.

And fold in with a whisk.

Since I'm a fan of whole wheat flour, I modified each recipe according to flour: the first used all purpose unbleached, the second a 50/50 of whole wheat and all purpose unbleached and the third, just whole wheat.  There wasn't much difference between the first and the second-  The first was just a touch lighter.  The third was much more dense.  If you're down with that, it's cool- that was the faculty's cake and some really liked it.  Others not so much.

Once the cake was mixed, the batter got to meet this guy- joy of baking refers to it as a two piece tube pan, but...

since it's Angie's and older than I am, I'll call it whatever it likes.  I just know that I'm holding onto this sucker until I've mastered two other fluffy cakes or figure out how to convert it into an electrical nose warmer.  The batter seemed to get along with the pan.

40ish minutes in the ovens and then things got weird- luckily I had help...

All of the recipes I've read on these types of cakes say that you need to insert a bottle in the center tube to let the cake cool complete without falling... The problem is, no one makes bottles the same size they did when Ang got this pan.  It was carnival like as we tried wine bottles, soda bottles, soy sauce, oil and pretty much anything else that was in my fridge, cupboards or anywhere else in the house... and then, we stumbled upon my cruet, which was the only thing that worked.  So, my stove looked like this for about five hours this weekend.  Doesn't it look safe?

The cakes made with the higher concentration of lighter flour were springy and light and paired deliciously with the lemon curd.

Angel food cake is being marked down as a pass, and I'm keeping this recipe.  Stay tuned for more tube pan goodness, "presenting you the future, today" or next week!  Be well!