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Dessert

Angel Food Cake

A light, airy cake made from egg whites, flour, sugar, salt, cream of tartar, and almond flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the flour and sugar together six times.

  2. Add salt to the egg whites and beat until very stiff and dry.

  3. Fold in the sifted sugar until dissolved.

  4. Add the almond flavoring and gently fold in the sifted flour.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a cake tin and thump the tin four times on the table, turning it each time.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Flour + sugartop 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

Egg whites
Trap air when beaten, creating the light, airy structure of the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and dissolves into the foam, helping it stay stable.
Flour
Sets during baking to give the cake its firm, sliceable structure.
Cream of tartar
Acid that strengthens the egg white foam so it holds its volume.
Almond flavoring
Adds a distinct aroma and flavor to the sweet, mild cake.

The step that matters

Fold in the sifted flour gently. Egg white foam holds its air only while it is intact. Vigorous stirring deflates it, so the cake will bake flat and dense 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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