Angel food cake is one-of-a-kind, and no othercake recipematches its super fluffy, airy texture. Though it's a type of sponge cake, it differs from other popular recipes because it's traditionally made using no butter or oil in the batter. Instead, beaten egg whites are the secret to its ultra-light texture. Most angel food cake recipes usually have a light vanilla flavor that lets you dress them up any way you want with icing, fresh fruit, or other sweet toppings. Follow these tips to make thebest angel food cakefrom scratch, including what to do if you're craving cake but don't have a tube pan.
Tips for Baking the Best Angel Food Cake
Just following your recipe's instructions will help you turn out a delectable angel food cake. But if a flawless dessert is your goal, these extra tips might help:
- Always use the ingredients called for in the recipe, like cake flour and powdered sugar.Cake flour is lighterand has less protein than all-purpose, which helps give an angel food cake its fluffiness. Likewise, powdered sugar has much smaller granules than regular white sugar, which will help it easily mix into the cake batter without weighing it down.
- Sift the flour mixture three times. Sifting will help remove any lumps from the flour andaerate the mixture, which will help make your cake light and fluffy.
- It probably goes against most of your baking instincts, but use an ungreased pan when baking angel food cake, and leave the nonstick spray in your pantry. You actually want the cake to cling to the sides of the pan, because ithelps the super-light batter rise. Greasing the pan can result in a flat, dense cake.
- Always flip the cake pan to cool your angel food cake with the open side down. Angel food cake will continue to set as it cools, and it can sink down in the pan and collapse if you don't flip it to cool.
- Use a serrated knife to cut angel food cake once you remove it from the pan. Non-serrated knives can smash the delicate cake.
Angel Food Cake Ingredient Substitutions
- If you're in a pinch for ingredients and need to know how to make angel food cake without cream of tartar,substitute lemon juice or white vinegar. Cream of tartar stabilizes the egg whites and helps create more volume, but both substitutions will also work.
- If you want to skip a few steps and learn how to make angel foodcake from a box mix, you can save yourself a little time. Some box mixes even eliminate the egg whites; all you have to do is add water, mix, and follow the package instructions to bake! Premade angel food cake mixes are especially helpful for speeding up recipes that use angel food cake as a base,such as trifles.
Can You Make Angel Food Cake in a Bundt Pan?
It might seem like the two are interchangeable, but the intricate details on most bundt pans make it very tricky to get an angel food cake out of the pan in one piece. Tube pans have flat tops and straight sides to make the cake easier to remove, and the batter clings to the sides and center tube as the cake bakes, which helps it rise. So stick to a tube pan, if possible.
If you don't have a tube pan, you can makeangel food cupcakes instead. Just be sure to reduce the baking time tofollow a cupcake recipeinstead.
How to Serve Angel Food Cake
This angel food cake recipe is great on its own but our recipe testers love it with a pile of fluffy whipped cream and fresh berries. You can also drizzle the cake with chocolate sauce or homemade caramel. There's also nothing wrong with spooning fresh raspberry sauce over each slice.
