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Dessert

Angel Cake

A light cake made from beaten egg whites, sugar, vanilla, flour, butter, brandy, and egg yolks, baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Henrietta Latham Dwight · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 ingredients
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Angel Cake

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Angel Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the whites

  1. Separate the whites of nine large, fresh eggs.

  2. Partially beat the whites, then add one-half teaspoonful of cream of tartar and finish beating.

  3. Add one and a quarter cups of granulated sugar, stirring the sugar very lightly into the whites.

  4. Add a teaspoonful of vanilla.

Fold in the flour

  1. Sift flour five times, measure a cupful, and fold it in very carefully, not with a circular motion, and do not stir long.

Bake and cool

  1. Turn the batter into a Turk's head mould and bake for forty-five minutes.

  2. Do not grease the mould.

  3. When taken out of the oven, invert the cake until it is cold before removing from the pan.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

747Calories
20 gProtein
23 gFat
109 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 8 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Waternot in our table0
Brandynot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Henrietta Latham Dwight. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Whites trap air when beaten, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the beaten egg whites so the foam holds its volume longer.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the beaten egg white foam.
Flour
Provides the set structure that holds the airy foam once baked.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour. Over-mixing or stirring with a circular motion knocks air out of the beaten whites, so the cake bakes up dense instead of light.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, egg, butter, flour, brandy):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, egg, butter, flour, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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