Skip to main content
Dessert

Angel Food

A light, airy cake made from whipped egg whites, sugar, flour, and flavoring.

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

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Angel Food

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the cream of tartar with the flour several times.

  2. Whip the egg whites until firm enough to hold an egg.

  3. Add the sugar and beat for a few more seconds.

  4. Stir in the flavoring and fold in the flour gradually without beating.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into an ungreased mold designed for angel food cake.

  2. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 25 to 30 minutes.

  3. Once baked, invert the mold to cool, allowing air to circulate underneath.

  4. If the cake does not release easily, run a thin knife around the edges.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Flour and egg 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

Whites of 11 eggs
Whipped into a foam that traps air and provides the cake's main structure.
Granulated sugar
Stabilizes the whipped whites and adds sweetness and a tender texture.
Flour
Provides light structure once folded in, setting as the cake bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping them whip to a stable, firm foam.

The step that matters

Fold in the flour gradually without beating. Beating after the flour is added develops gluten and deflates the whipped egg white foam, which leads to a dense, tough cake instead of a light, airy one.

“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.

More angel food recipes

Cake 197Orange Cake 5 See all 13 →

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes