Recipe of the Week: Angel Food Cake

Angel Food Cake is perfect if you're looking for a light and yummy dessert. I usually buy a cake at the grocery store, but decided to try making it at home. I've heard it's a little tricky because of the egg whites in the recipe, but I went in (mostly) fearless. 

It paid off!

My recipe is adapted from Taste of Home's, which uses cake flour and almond extract. I didn't have cake flour and I'm allergic to almonds. So, I made a few substitutions (see below.) 

I also found the original recipe a little confusing as far as when to mix certain ingredients and when. So, I'll provide some helpful hints to make this easier. 

You'll find the basic recipe below, because I didn't want to bury it in the post. The tips are below that. 

Recipe Tips:

Tip #1: Make sure you use the whisk beaters on your stand or hand mixer. The egg whites need all the air to start to make those magical peaks. Speaking of which. soft peaks look like the photo on the left and stiff peaks should look like the photo on the right. 

Tip #2: The flour and sugar go into the food processor/blender to give it the proper texture. Cake flour is finer than all-purpose flour. So, I tried this technique. It worked fine. This also combines the ingredients well so you don't need a sifter. Bonus!

Tip #3: The original recipe suggests using an ungreased pan so the batter can climb up the sides. However, the outer layer will stick. The cake still tastes great, but isn't as pretty as I'd like.  Next time, I might try lightly spraying the bottom of the pan or using parchment paper on the bottom to reduce sticking. 

Tip #4: Don't over fold your batter. You want to keep your batter filled with air as much as possible. This is what help gives it lift and makes the texture so wonderful!

Tip #5: Enjoy!