All-American cake

Angel food cake is an American invention that goes back to the late 1800's. The first recipe for Angel Food Cake was published by Fannie Merritt Farmer in the Boston Cooking School Cook Book in 1896. There were several recipes similar to angel food cake published prior, including a recipe by former slave Abby Fisher, in the first cookbook written by an African-American called What Mrs. Fisher knows about Old Southern Cooking: Soups, Pickles, Preserves, etc... Mrs. Fisher called her cake Silver Cake. If you like history and you like food you may enjoy both of these charming books.

Light and delicious

If you are used to only store-bought angel food cakes, you are in for a pleasant surprise. This homemade angel food cake is surprisingly easy to make, and is worlds better than the ones you buy at the grocery store. This cake is light and spongy, with a bit of caramelization on the crust. The recipe comes from Nick Malgieri and his beautiful cookbook Perfect Cakes. If you love to make cakes, I recommend his book. The pictures are very inspirational! The interesting thing about this angel food cake is it uses all-purpose flour. This is contrary to most angel food cake wisdom. Most angel food cake recipes calls for cake flour. I have to agree with Nick on this one; all-purpose flour delivers a delicious, light, textured, spongy cake.

Click to download our free e-cookbook: 15 Recipes To Make You Look Like A Star

It is all about the egg whites

There are several tips to working with egg whites that are essential to making a successful angel food cake. Here are my best tips:

• Separate the egg whites when the eggs are fresh out of the fridge. Cold eggs are easier to separate than room temperature eggs.
• Crack each egg into a small bowl. Make sure there is no yolk in each egg white. Then transfer each individual yolk-free egg white into a measuring cup that you will use to collect all of the egg whites.
• Measure your egg whites by volume, rather than by number of eggs. Eggs vary in size and you are looking for 1 1/2 cups of egg whites, which will typically be 11 to 13 eggs.
• Let your egg whites come to room temperature before you begin whisking them.
• Make sure your whisking bowl is clean and free of any grease. Do not use an aluminum or plastic bowl. Stainless steel or copper work best.
• Whisk your eggs until they have large, glossy, soft peaks. Do not beat until you have stiff peaks.

A good Angel food cake pan helps

I have made this cake in a bundt pan, and it works OK, but it is tough getting the cake out. The crust gets a little chewed up and ugly and looks like this:

I am very reluctant to add specialty pans to my already overflowing collection, but I decided it was worth investing in a good angel food cake pan. The thing about angel food cake is that there is no leavening in it. Angel food cakes rise to their spongy glory via steam and the air you whisk into the eggs. It is common wisdom that you don't want to use a non-stick pan for angel food cake because the cake needs to "climb up the pan" as the cake rises in the oven and a non-stick pan won't allow the cake to stick to the sides of the pan.

I did a little research on this and found not everyone agreed. So thinking that like the cake flour conventional wisdom, there might be some myth to what is needed in an angel food cake pan, I took a chance on this well-rated, Chicago Metallic, heavy, non-stick pan with a removable bottom, and legs for cooling. It worked like a dream.

2-piece Chicago Metallic nonstick Angel food cake pan with feet

Do not butter or flour the pan

Whatever pan you use, do not butter or flour it. Remember you want your Angel food cake to stick to the sides of the pan. The cake needs to stick to the sides of the pan as  it rises.

Sift

I generally avoid sifting whenever I can, but for this cake I sift. I use a mesh strainer and a spoon rather than a sifter. It takes only a minute and I avoid owning yet another cooking device.

Mixers

If you have a stand mixer, use it for this cake. A hand mixer will work, but plan on beating the egg whites for a good 6 minutes. That's a lot of hand mixing!

Cooling

Some Angel food cake pans come with little feet that allow you to cool the cake upside down. If your pan does not have feet, improvise with a beer bottle. Trust me, your cake will not fall out.

Cool Angel-food cake upside down

Removing the cake from the pan

Because the cake sticks to the sides of the pan you need to loosen it. The best tool for doing this is a small off-set spatula. Gently work the spatula up and down around the sides of the cake and around the core to free the sides. This spatula is also indispensable for frosting cakes and cupcakes.

Use an offset spatula to free the sides of the cake from the pan.

Make Angel food cake with everyday ingredients

What I really like about angel food cake is you can make it with everyday ingredients. If you have sugar, flour, a dozen eggs, salt, lemon and vanilla in the house you have everything you need to make this delicious cake. I like to use vanilla paste instead of vanilla extract because of the flavor and the beautiful little vanilla seeds that are incorporated into the paste.

Serve with fresh whipped cream, berries, peaches or mango.