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Dessert

Our Improved Angel Cake

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

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 ↓

Our Improved Angel Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Sift the flour four or five times.

  3. Measure and set aside 1 cup of sifted flour.

  4. Sift the granulated sugar.

  5. Measure 1¼ cups of sifted sugar.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites.

  3. Beat the mixture until very stiff.

  4. Gently stir in the sugar.

  5. Gently stir in the flour, being careful not to deflate the egg whites.

  6. Pour the batter into an ungreased pan that has been wet with cold water.

Bake

  1. Bake for 50 minutes.

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. 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 that gives the cake its light, airy structure.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
Flour
Provides the light structure that sets around the air bubbles as the cake bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping them whip to a stronger, more stable foam.

The step that matters

Gently stir in the flour. Folding rather than stirring keeps the air bubbles in the whipped egg whites intact. Deflated foam produces a dense cake with less rise.

“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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