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Dessert

Angel Cake

Angel Cake is a light, airy cake made from egg whites, sugar, flour, cream of tartar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Angel Cake

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Angel Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Sift the flour four to five times, then measure it.

  3. Sift the sugar and measure it.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Add the cream of tartar and pinch of salt, then beat until very stiff.

  3. Gently fold the sugar into the egg whites, then fold in the flour very lightly.

  4. Pour the batter into an ungreased cake pan.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake for 35 to 50 minutes until golden.

  2. Turn the cake upside down to cool completely before removing from the pan.

  3. Frost with your choice of frosting.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into foam to create the airy structure that lifts the whole cake.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
All-purpose flour
Provides light structure so the cake sets around the air bubbles.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping them whip to a stronger, more stable foam.

The step that matters

Folding the sugar and flour into the egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites. Stirring or deflating the foam makes the cake dense and short instead of light and tall.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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