Delicious, classic Homemade Angel Food Cake recipe! (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to angel food cake? ›

Egg Whites: The star of the show! They provide all of the leavening for angel food cake. Using only whites (no yolks) gives this cake a super light texture. Be sure to use only fresh eggs; liquid egg whites in a carton have been pasteurized, which can prevent them from whipping into stiff peaks.

Two types of sugar are used for this recipe, as they serve different purposes. The granulated sugar, which you'll add while whipping the egg whites, helps stabilize the foam and give the cake its structure. Powdered sugar is added in later for additional airy sweetness, tenderization, and flavor.

Use cream of tartar – cream of tartar is an acid and stabilizes the egg whites. Without cream of tartar, your cake will collapse. Other acidic ingredients aren't quite as strong, so I wouldn't recommend substituting cream of tartar with anything. Sift some of the sugar and flour several times – four to be exact.

Angel food cake MUST be cooled inverted, or upside down. Otherwise, the cake will collapse on itself. Tube pans can be balanced on bottles or you can rest the edges against something raised (like books or cutting boards of equal heights).

Some people use a bit of lemon or lime juice or white vinegar to help stabilize the egg whites instead, but I recommend cream of tartar for best results. Flour. Growing up we never had cake flour in my house and so we were forced to improvise.

Overmixing is exactly what it sounds like: the process by which a dough or batter gets mixed too much, typically yielding dense, tough, or deflated baked goods. Overmixed doughs and batters may have an unappealing look or feel, which remain just as unappealing when they're baked.

It's possible that the cake went bad and that's why it tasted sour. When perishable food items like cake are left at room temperature for too long, they can become contaminated with harmful bacteria that can cause food poisoning.

Not Whipping the Egg Whites Correctly

Without yeast to act as a leavening agent, an angel food cake relies completely on the egg whites to rise. You want to whip the whites just until they form soft peaks; whipping too much will make the cake chewy and dense.

Angel food cake recipes don't typically contain leaveners; the air whipped into the egg white-based batter is what makes them so lofty. Because of this, you will need a straight-sided pan that's uncoated (and ungreased) so that the batter can cling to the sides of the pan as it expands, helping it rise up tall.

But some desserts, such as angel food cake, are naturally less deadly on the calorie and fat scales, so a full-size portion on occasion won't wreak havoc on an otherwise healthy diet. Angel food cake gets its lift from beaten egg whites. No egg yolks and no butter mean the cake contains no fat.

What pan is best for angel food cake? ›

The Wilton Angel Food Cake Pan is a top option for even heat distribution and even baking every time.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray a 9x13-inch pan with cooking spray. Mix pineapple with juice and cake mix together in a large bowl until well combined; pour batter into the prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown, about 25 minutes.

Remove from the oven, then cool the cake completely upside-down set on a wire rack, about 3 hours. so your answer is wait for 3 hours. How do you cool an angel food cake? If you've baked it in a tube pan, you invert it onto a bottle that goes through the center hole of the pan, so the cake doesn't collapse as it cools.

Do not grease the angel food cake tube pan (one in which the center tube is higher than the walls of pan and the bottom is removable.) You want the batter to cling to the side while it is rising. A greased pan will not allow the batter to rise.

Angel food cake is one-of-a-kind, and no other cake recipe matches its super fluffy, airy texture. Though it's a type of sponge cake, it differs from other popular recipes because it's traditionally made using no butter or oil in the batter. Instead, beaten egg whites are the secret to its ultra-light texture.

These specialty vessels actually help delicate cakes rise. Because egg foam–based cakes like angel food and chiffon contain very little flour, and therefore very little of the structure-building network called gluten, the batter needs something to cling to as it bakes, or it will collapse.