Evaluation of the Angel Food Cake

The first cake is one that a type of cake seldom seen today but had some popularity in the 19th century, from the late 1840’s to around 1900 when a better but similar cake evolved from it, it is called a Cornstarch Cake because depending on the recipe, ¼ to ½ of the flour is replaced with cornstarch. This is a slight rework of an 1860’s recipe. These cakes could have not been made till the middle 1840’s when cornstarch came on the market. The cornstarch mixed with the regular flour will make it a very light product compared to regular flour.

Corn Starch Cake
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup of cornstarch
½ teaspoon of salt
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
8 egg whites
2 teaspoons of almond extract (Can substitute vanilla)

Cream the butter and beat in the sugar, beat in the milk, mix the baking powder in well with the flour and beat into the mix. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and add, flavor with the almond extract.
Put in 2 loaf pans, two 9 inch round cake pans or a 12” dutch oven and bake in a slow oven 40-50 minutes.

It’s hard to really tell, but from recipes in cookbooks this cake may have evolved a bit as time went on, like all recipes, they change as others make them, but mostly it lost the cornstarch, although some recipes add a little, around two tablespoons for each cup of flour or slightly less than a cup of flour. (Most will know that is the standard recipe for making a substitute for cake flour, cake flour having not been introduced at the time of the first of these recipes.)

The next step from what I see, seems to have come about in the 1880’s, The Cornstarch Cake is a butter cake, really not much different than the Pound Cake, except it uses beaten egg whites instead of beaten whole egg and the original pound cake only uses the beaten eggs for leavening.

The next step we lose all the fat in the cake, we have already lost some when we got rid of the egg yolks, now we get rid of the butter and the milk. When beating egg whites the bowl must be free of any oils or fats, these keep the egg whites from making the stiff froth needed to leaven the cake, and cleaning the bowl with a salt/vinegar mix and rinsing well will help. Also the bowl should be perfectly dry before starting. These in their many forms started being made around the Civil War.

Another factor that helped is the various attempts to make a mechanical egg beater, evolved into the familiar one we call a Dover egg beater and uses the blade type beaters still seen on most electric beaters today.

This cake is very close to the true Angel Food cake, recipes for it, like the Corn Starch and the true Angel Food cake they will vary some depending on the recipe, but the big difference now is this is still baked in a regular pan, adding cream of tartar in the eggs help them retain more air for a lighter cake.

The date on this one like a lot of recipes is murky, however it's rise to popularity was toward the end of the 19th century due to mass produced tube pans and egg beaters.

Angel Cake
9 egg whites
1 ¼ sugar
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon salt

Add the salt to the egg whites and beat till they start to get foamy, add the cream of tartar and beat till very stiff, fold in the sugar, then the flour, flavor and pour into two 9 inch round cake pans, that are ungreased. This is one that is best baked in separate pans if using a Dutch oven.

Bake in a slow oven (275F) 40 to 50 minutes. Invert with the pans raised and clear of the table to help the cake cool and turn out.

The next step in our evolution of the Angel Food Cake is to switch pans to a tube pan, some recipes also change ingredients to powdered sugar instead of granulated sugar, and the cream of tartar in this helps stiffen the egg whites. The tube pan has more surface area to cling to and also heats the cake from more sides as it bakes, giving the cake more loft.

Angel Food Cake

12 egg whites
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup cake flour
1 ½ teaspoons of cream of tartar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract.
¼ teaspoon salt

Beat the egg whites slightly and add the cream of tartar and the salt until mixture is foamy, beat in the granulated sugar a little at a time adding the almond and vanilla extract with the last of the sugar, continue beating till stiff and glossy.

Mix the powder sugar and the cake flour a little at a time till it has mixed in very well. Spoon the batter into a tube pan a little at a time and spread it even, cutting into the batter to remove any air pockets.
Bake in a moderate oven (350F) 30-40 minutes or until the cake springs back when touched. Hang the cake pan upside down on a bottle and let cool 2 hours or so. When thoroughly cool run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen and remove.