A couple of weeks ago, both Mike and I celebrated our 32nd birthday. We are both trying to cut out excess fat and calories so we figured there wouldn’t be much in the way of birthday cake for us this year. That is–until I remembered Angel Food Cake, which has 0 FAT GRAMS. Yes. ZERO. To be honest, as much as I love to bake, I’d never even thought to bake an Angel Food Cake. Seemed a bit overwhelming to me. The truth is that it is very easy to make and trust me–you haven’t tasted Angel Food Cake until you’ve had homemade Angel Food Cake.
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a food processor spin sugar about 2 minutes until it is superfine. If you don’t have a food processor then substitute powdered sugar, but if you do have a food processor go ahead and make your own powdered sugar as directed–it doesn’t have any of the additives and fillers that the store bought has.
Sift half of the sugar with the salt the cake flour, setting the remaining sugar aside for another use.
In a large bowl, use a balloon whisk to thoroughly combine egg whites, water, orange extract, and cream of tartar. It’s important that you do this first part by hand and not with an electric mixer–you’re able to build a better foam this way.
After 2 minutes, it will look like this…
go ahead and switch to a hand mixer. Slowly sift the reserved sugar, beating continuously at medium speed.
the foam will grow and grow until it looks more or less like this…
Until you have achieved medium peaks, which will look like this…
Then, sift enough of the flour mixture in to dust the top of the foam.
Using a spatula fold in gently. Fold by placing the spatula in the center of the bowl, pulling the spatula towards you, and then fold the batter over gently. Rotate the bowl and repeat the folding process. Getting the folding part right is important–you don’t want to deflate the beautiful meringue you just worked so hard on!
Continue until all of the flour mixture is incorporated.
Carefully spoon mixture into an ungreased tube pan. Please do not grease the pan or else the cake will not rise properly!
Bake for 35 minutes before checking for doneness with a wooden skewer or toothpick–opening the oven door before it’s ready will deflate the cake so don’t be tempted! When you do check for doneness, look for a nicely browned cake and insert a toothpick halfway between the inner and outer wall–if it comes out clean–it is done!
Cool upside down on cooling rack for at least an hour before removing from pan. When the cake is completely cooled, run a thin bladed knife around the edges of the cake pan and around the tube to loosen the cake from the pan before you remove it. You also need to run a sharp knife between the bottom of the tube pan and the cake to release the bottom of the cake from the pan. This sounds like a lot to do, but it is pretty easy to do. My tube pan isn’t even non-stick and the cake released perfectly.
Once you have the cake out of the pan, there are many ways to fill and top it–fresh fruit being my favorite. For Mike’s birthday, all I did was filled and topped the cake with sweetened whipped cream {homemade} and fresh strawberries. It was to die for!
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown via Food Network.
OTHER RECIPE: