Skip to main content
Dessert

Angels Food

A light dessert made with beaten egg whites, powdered sugar, red jelly, whipped cream, and optional seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Angels Food

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Add 6 tablespoons of powdered sugar to the egg whites and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the red jelly to give it a pretty color.

Combine and serve

  1. Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form, adding sugar and seasoning to taste.

  2. Pour the egg white mixture over the whipped cream and gently fold together.

  3. Serve with 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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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, they lighten the dessert and give it an airy texture.
Heavy cream
Whipped to soft peaks, it adds richness and a creamy body.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the egg whites, adding sweetness and stabilizing the foam.
Red jelly
Adds sweetness, flavor and the pink color.

The step that matters

Pour the egg white mixture over the whipped cream and gently fold together.. Folding rather than stirring keeps air trapped in the egg white foam and cream. Vigorous mixing deflates both, leaving a dense, flat dessert.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes