Skip to main content
Dessert

Angel Food Cake

A light, airy cake made from egg whites, sugar, pastry flour, cream of tartar, and almond 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 Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Sift the pastry flour four times.

  2. Sift the sugar once.

  3. Measure and combine the sifted flour and sugar.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until half stiff.

  2. Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites.

  3. Continue beating until stiff peaks form.

  4. Gently fold in the flour and sugar mixture.

  5. Add the almond flavoring.

Bake

  1. Place a pie pan of water on the lower rack.

  2. Bake in an ungreased Van Dusen pan for 1 hour at 300°F (150°C).

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. Egg + flourtop 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).

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
Trap air in a foam that sets as the cake bakes, giving its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the beaten egg white foam.
Pastry flour
Provides a light, delicate structure that holds the risen foam once baked.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that stabilizes the egg white foam and keeps it from collapsing.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the flour and sugar mixture. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the beaten egg whites intact. Stirring or deflating the foam makes the cake dense and less airy after baking.

“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 cake recipes

Orange 5 See all 197 →

You might also like

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