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Dessert

Ribbon Angel Food

A light, airy cake made from egg whites, sugar syrup, flour, baking powder, and almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Ribbon Angel Food

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup and dry ingredients

  1. Boil the sugar and water until it reaches 237°F (113°C). Set aside to partially cool.

  2. Sift the flour and baking powder together 5 times.

  3. Mix the cream of tartar with 1 teaspoon of sugar on a piece of paper.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the cold egg whites until stiff and white. Add the cream of tartar and continue to whip until stiff peaks form.

  2. Pour the cooked syrup into the egg whites without scraping the pan and whip briskly.

  3. Add the extract, then carefully fold in the flour and baking powder.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in 2 deep ungreased layer cake pans, starting at 250°F (120°C) and finishing at 425°F (220°C).

  2. Set the layers together with 'Jiffy Icing' an inch thick between and on top of the layers. Optionally, tint the icing pink or the cake dough.

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

Egg whites
Whipped into foam that gives the cake its light, airy structure.
Granulated sugar
Cooked into a syrup that sweetens and stabilises the whipped egg whites.
Flour
Folded in gently to add just enough structure to hold the airy foam.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping them whip to stable, fine-textured peaks.
Baking powder
Provides additional lift as the batter heats in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour. Flour must be folded gently so the whipped egg white foam keeps its air. Stirring or deflating it makes the cake dense and reduces its rise.

“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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