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).
Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.
Make the batter
Sift the sugar four times.
Sift the flour and add the cream of tartar, then sift again.
Sift the flour and sugar together twice more.
Gently fold the sugar into the beaten egg whites, then add the flour mixture and flavoring.
Beat the mixture continuously until ready to bake.
Bake
Pour into a loaf pan or two shallow pans.
Bake for 40 minutes.
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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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Egg + sugartop 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
- Whipped into a foam that traps air, giving the cake its light, airy structure as it bakes.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and stabilizes the whipped egg white foam, keeping it from collapsing.
- All-purpose flour
- Sets during baking to give the cake its firm but tender crumb.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the egg whites, stabilizing the foam so it holds more air and stays stiff.
The step that matters
Gently fold the sugar and flour into the beaten egg whites. The cake rises only because of the air trapped in the egg white foam. Vigorous stirring deflates the foam, so the cake bakes up dense and flat instead of 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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