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Why You’ll Love My Recipe
Light, fluffy, and surprisingly sturdy, a good angel (or angel food) cake can be a challenge to create. It doesn’t have to be difficult though, with this easy-to-follow recipe.
Why not learn How to Make an Orange Icing Glaze for your angel cake? Or for something a little more indulgent you could try this Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe, or this Coffee Buttercream Frosting?
Karlynn’s Recipe Notes
- Skill Level: This recipe is fairly easy but requires some concentration and lots of egg separating, as well as some ingredients you may not typically keep at home.
- Total Time: This recipe will take you approximately 45 minutes from start to finish, depending how long it takes you to separate your eggs.
- Variations: Angel cake requires a delicate balance of ingredients, so it’s safest to save any creative endeavors for once it’s baked. You should be able to add a few drops of almond extract, coconut extract, or vanilla to the batter without causing any problems. . Try one of the buttercreams or glazes linked above, or your own favourite recipe. The cake itself is very lightly flavoured, so you can pair it with almost anything. Why not try a Maple Frosting or Pistachio Pudding Buttercream Frosting? Or simply serve cake with ice cream.
- Tools Needed: For this recipe, you’ll need a medium bowl, a sifter, a stand mixer (or hand mixer and large bowl), a spatula, an egg separator, and a tube pan. If you don’t have a tube pan, you’ll need a Bundt pan or some other cake pan big enough for this fluffy cake.
What You’ll Need For Ingredients
Egg Whites: This recipe calls for 10 egg whites, so plan accordingly. If separating that many eggs scares you, some stores do sell cartons of egg whites, but they have been processed and won’t fluff as much as fresh eggs.
Cake Flour: This is one of the recipes that will not work with all-purpose flour. You need the finer-milled cake flour to produce the smooth crumb of the cake. If you can’t find or afford cake flour, you can look up proper proportions to mix all-purpose flour and cornstarch to get similar results.
Cream of Tartar: This crucial ingredient can usually be found in the baking aisle, with the spices, though it’s not a spice or a seasoning. It’s the same stuff that helps meringue cookies stay firm and provides that tangy kick to a perfect Snickerdoodle. It’s also used in a lot of imitation Playdough recipes.
How To Make Angel Cake
This is a brief overview of the recipe. The full list of ingredients and step-by-step instructions are in the recipe card below.
- In a medium bowl, sift together your cake flour and powdered sugar. Add salt. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a stand mixer with whisk attachment at medium speed, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Mix in the Cream of Tartar. Slowly add sugar, still mixing at medium speed.
- Sift 1/3 of the flour into the bowl and fold it in carefully. Add the rest slowly, a little bit at a time. Be careful not to overbeat the batter.
- Pour batter into an ungreased tube pan. Bake for 40 minutes.
- Remove cake from oven and turn it upside down to cool before removing it from the pan for icing.
Karlynn’s Tips and Tricks for Making Angel Cake
Yolk Uses: This recipe uses a whole lot of egg whites, which will inevitably leave you with a bowlful of egg yolks. Fortunately, there are many delicious ways to use those yolks and avoid waste. You can make something sweet and custard-based, like Lemon Bars or Flan. You can whip up a batch of homemade mayonnaise, or try something a bit fancy and make some salt-cured egg yolks (you can freeze these and then use a grater to grate small amounts onto pasta dishes for a salty, umami kick).
Keep it Separated: It’s a good idea to separate each individual egg into a small container before pouring the egg white into your mixing bowl. This will help you ensure that you don’t accidentally introduce even the tiniest bit of egg yolk, which would prevent the egg whites from stiffening.
Pan Alternatives: Not everyone owns a tube pan, which is the classic choice for baking angel cakes. If you haven’t got one, try baking your cake in a simple Bundt pan or even a loaf pan. Make sure that whatever pan you use is greased well, and pay extra attention to the internal temperature of the cake if you use a pan with no hole in the middle.
Storage Instructions
Store this cake, cooled and unfrosted, wrapped in plastic wrap at room temperature for up to 3 days. You can freeze it, wrapped tightly, for several months.
More Delicious Cake Recipes
Looking for more Cake recipes?
Try a dense Cream Cheese Pound Cake Recipe or some Strawberry Plum Crumb Cake for a filling afternoon snack.
For something with complex flavours, try Hummingbird Cake or Tiramisu Cake.
There you go, everyone. A perfectly fluffy cake to serve with rich buttercream and a scoop of ice cream. Try it out and let me know what you think.
Happy Baking!
Karlynn
Angel Cake
Ingredients
- 1 ½ Cups Powdered Sugar
- 1 Cup Cake Flour
- 1 dash salt
- 10 large egg whites
- 1 ½ teaspoons cream of tartar
- ¾ Cup granulated sugar
Instructions
- Sift the powdered sugar and the cake flour together in a medium sized bowl. add the dash of salt. Set aside.
- Preheat your oven to 350°F
- In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment or in a large bowl beat the egg whites only until soft peaks form, sprinkle the cream of tartar over and mix again until combined.
- Continue mixing on medium while slowly adding the granulated sugar. Do not over beat the egg whites.
- Sift 1/3 of the flour mixture over the egg white mixture and lightly fold it in. repeat again with the remaining mixture little by little.
- Turn the batter into a large ungreased angel cake tube pan making sure there are no large bubbles in the batter. Lightly smooth the top of the cake batter.
- Bake the cake for about 40 minutes in the preheated oven until the top is golden brown.
- Take the cake out of the oven and immediately turn the cake upside down to cool. If the cake has risen over the sides you will need to stand it on something like a wine bottle balanced in the center of the pan upside down.
- Once the cake has fully cooled loosen the cake from the sides of the pan and frost as desired.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Jenneke says
When I’m separating eggs, I always use 3 ( or more) bowls. The first is my ‘scrupulously clean working’ bowl over which I do the separation. If that happens successfully, the white is added into the second bowl . The third is where the yolk is placed. If I have an unsuccessful attempt, that mixture will be used for scrambled eggs or something. And I proceed with the 4th clean bowl as my ‘working bowl’.
It sounds more complicated than it is🤣, but I’m kinda klutzy, so successfully separating 10 eggs is a feat!
Also, I find separating the eggs when they are cold works better than if they’re room temperature. I then cover the bowls with plastic wrap til they’re room temp.