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Dessert

Angel Food

A light, airy cake made from beaten egg whites, cake flour, sugar, cream of tartar, and a pinch of salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Add the pinch of salt to the egg whites and beat until frothy.

  3. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.

  4. Gradually add the sugar and flour alternately, mixing until fully combined.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into an ungreased cake tin.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes.

  3. Once done, invert the cake tin over a tea cloth and let it cool completely.

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

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

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 and gives the cake its light, airy structure.
Cake flour
Provides a light structure that sets around the air bubbles as the cake bakes.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, making the foam more stable and less likely to collapse.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Air whipped into the egg whites is the only leavening in an angel food cake. If the whites are under-beaten, the foam is weak and the cake rises poorly; if over-beaten, it turns dry and grainy and can collapse. Stopping at stiff, glossy peaks gives the best lift.

“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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