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Dessert

Angel Cake

A light cake made from egg whites, sugar, flour, lemon juice, vanilla, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
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Angel Cake

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Angel Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the whites

  1. Separate the eggs; place the whites into a cold dish and leave for 15–20 minutes.

  2. Add a pinch of salt to the whites and begin beating with a long slow stroke, gradually increasing speed until the eggs begin to stiffen.

  3. Pour lemon juice over the whites and beat more rapidly for a time until the whites are stiff and feathery.

  4. Add vanilla flavoring.

Make the batter

  1. Sift 2 or 3 cups of sugar twice, measure out 1 cup; sift flour 4 times, measure out 1 cup; mix the flour with the sugar, sift together once, and set aside in a cold place.

  2. Sift the flour‑sugar mixture over the beaten egg whites gradually, folding it in carefully.

Bake and cool

  1. Drop the batter by spoonfuls evenly into the pan and bake in a slow oven for 35–50 minutes, testing with a broom straw.

  2. When done, turn the pan upside down with the sides resting on two saucers (unless you have pans with projections for that purpose) so that a current of air will pass under and over the cake.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

594Calories
20 gProtein
7 gFat
112 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Evora Bucknum Perkins. 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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 a foam that gives the cake its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the whipped whites.
Flour
Provides light structure so the cake holds its shape after folding.
Lemon juice
Acidity helps stabilize the beaten egg whites and keep them from collapsing.

The step that matters

Folding the flour-sugar mixture into the whites. Stirring or deflating the whites by overmixing destroys the trapped air that makes angel cake rise, so the flour and sugar must be added gradually and folded in gently.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour. 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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