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Dessert

Angel Cake

A light, airy cake made from whipped egg whites, sugar, flour, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 and measure the sugar and flour, then set aside.

  3. In a bowl, whip the egg whites with a pinch of salt until foamy.

  4. Add the cream of tartar and continue whipping until very stiff.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually fold in the sugar using a spoon, then add flavoring and fold in.

  2. Gently fold in the flour until just combined.

  3. Pour the batter into an ungreased tube pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

  4. Watch for the cake to begin shrinking from the sides of the pan.

Bake and cool

  1. Once it shrinks, remove it from the oven and invert the pan immediately.

  2. Let it hang until completely cool, then remove from the pan and frost.

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 to foam, they trap air and form the cake's light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, folded into the whites, helps stabilize the foam.
All-purpose flour
Provides the protein-based structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the whites, stabilizing the foam so it whips stiffer and holds its volume.

The step that matters

Inverting the pan immediately after baking. Angel cake's foam structure is delicate and sets while hot; hanging the pan upside down while it cools keeps the cake from collapsing and shrinking as steam escapes.

“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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