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 Food
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Add cream of tartar to the flour.
Make the batter
In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the flour mixture.
Add the granulated sugar and flavoring, folding until just combined.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into an ungreased tube pan.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the cake is golden and springs back when touched.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Trap air when beaten, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilizes the beaten whites, helping them hold their stiff peaks.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the airy foam once set in the oven.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep the beaten whites stable and glossy.
The step that matters
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the flour mixture. The cake rises mainly from the air beaten into the whites. Stirring or deflating the foam with hard, vigorous mixing knocks out that air, leaving a dense, flat cake. Folding slowly keeps the batter light.
“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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