I learned about this cake in the USA as I had never seen it in France or in the UK before. It’s mostly egg whites and sugar (a meringue) with a little bit of flour. Everything is very light. No fat at all in the batter itself.
You MUST use a special pan for this cake. The pan is in two parts and has a middle part so the cake is never too wide and the batter can grip to something while cooking and cooling.
With the whipping cream and strawberries it always look fantastic.
Make sure you practice a few times as how much you whip the eggs and how you incorporate the flour sugar may need adjustments.
I have seen recipes cooking it at 375 for 30 to 40 minutes. i prefer to do it more gently at 325 for about 50 minutes.
Tools
- Oven 325F
- Angel food cake pan
- electric whisk or kitchenaid mixer.
- Silicone spatula
- Serrated knife
- Angled Spatula
- measuring spoon and cup, scale
Ingredients
- 12 egg whites
- 1 cup cake flour (soft wheat)
- 1 3/4 granulated sugar
- cream of tartar (optional) 1 tsp
- salt 1/4 tsp
- vanilla extract 2tsp
- almond extract 1/2 tsp
- strawberries and heavy whipping cream for decoration.
- In a bowl, combine the flour and about 1/2 the sugar, set aside
- Whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar to soft peaks.
- Add the rest of the sugar to the egg whites and beat until combined.
- Slow down the mixer to slow, or with a spatula, add in 3 or 4 times the flour and sugar set aside in step 1. Be gentle so the eggs do not go flat.
- transfer to the ungreased cake pan. even out the top a bit.
- Cook until golden brown and crusty. 40 to 50 minutes
- Get cake out of the oven and turn upside down until it cook completely.
- Run a knife around the inside and outside edge of the pan and pull the cake out, run a knife around the base so the cake is free. Run a knife horizontally at mid height of the cake.
- Take the top half of the cake and put uspide down in a serving dish.
- Make some chantilly (heavy whipping cream and a little bit of sugar whipped) and spread on the top of the half cake and the sides. put some strawberry slices in there too.
- Put the second half of the cake on top. add more whipped cream on top and edges.
- Add more strawberry slices on top and sides.
The whipping cream and strawberries are optional but improve the cake a lot I think. Also if the cake ended up not looking terribly good, the whipped cream will hide all that. of course if the batter is wrong and the cake is all soggy, it won’t save it but it will still look good.
Be careful not to whip the egg whites too much. Otherwise the cake will not rise well.
Do NOT grease the pan, so the batter can grab to edges and rise. Make sure you cool the cake upside down or its weight will pull it down while cooling.
When you are done you’ll have plenty of leftover egg yolk. I suggest making some pasta (12 egg yolk for 500 grams of flour)
You can adjust the amount of eggs. I’m not so good with fractions so use this metric table:
| Eggs | 1 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 16 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| flour | 10.5 grams | 60 grams | 75 grams | 125 grams | 170 grams |
| sugar | 15.5+21 grams | 100+125 grams | 125+ 175 grams | 175+250 | 250+325 |
Wilton makes some nice aluminum angel food cake pans in 7 Inch
and 10 Inch
. they work well with 6 or 12 eggs. I would not try 16 egg whites in the 10 inch one. I also scored a pan at goodwill for $3.99!
The cream of tartar is supposed to help the egg whites rise. some people claim you don’t need them if you use a copper bowl because of a chemical reaction between the copper and the egg. The cream of tartar is simply acidic but with no taste. you could probably do without or with a little bit of lemon juice.