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Dessert

Angel Cake

A baked cake made from whipped egg whites, sugar, vanilla, boiling water, and flour.

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 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 ↓

Angel Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Whip and mix

  1. Beat the egg whites until foamy.

  2. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until almost stiff.

  3. Gradually add the granulated sugar while beating continuously.

  4. Mix in the vanilla extract.

  5. Just before pouring into the pan, add the boiling water.

Bake

  1. Bake for 40 minutes.

Sift

  1. Sift the sugar twice and the flour four or five times.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

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 a foam that traps air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping the foam stay stable and hold its volume.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and, added gradually, helps stabilise the whipped foam.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake once it is baked.

The step that matters

Gradually add the sugar while beating. Adding sugar slowly while beating dissolves it into the foam and strengthens the egg white structure. Dumping it in at once can deflate the foam and leave the cake dense.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, sugar, flour):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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