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Dessert

Six Egg Angel Cake

A light, airy cake made from egg whites, sugar, flour, salt, and cream of tartar.

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

Six Egg Angel Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg whites and salt until soft peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gently fold in the cream of tartar and flour until just combined.

  4. Pour the batter into an ungreased angel food cake pan.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the cake is golden and springs back when touched.

  2. Invert the pan to cool completely before removing the cake.

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.

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. Cream + flourtop 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 that provides the cake's airy structure and lift.
Sugar
Added gradually to stabilize the whipped foam and sweeten the cake.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping them whip to a stable, stiff foam.
Flour
Lightly folded in to give the cake enough set structure to hold its airy crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour and cream of tartar. Overmixing deflates the whipped egg white foam, causing a dense, heavy cake. Fold gently and only until just combined so the air bubbles that give the cake its lift stay intact.

“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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