Crafty Quackery: angel food cake

Friday, June 1, 2012

Food Friday - Angel Food Cake Win

So I am going to share with you the Angel Food Cake my mom and I made that actually came out right!!

Please remember the recipe here.

Mix the first ingredients. My mom wanted to make sure to put the eggs in the bowl first since last time it didn't seem to mix right.

Don't forget the vanilla!

In a second bowl mix the second set of ingredients. You will notice that there is no green powder this time. My mom made sure to buy the right kind this time.

We attempted to follow the directions to the letter this time. We mixed the eggs until fluffy just like we were supposed to.

Then we added the dry ingredients and it got even fluffier!

Then we filled the cake pan with the mixture. We did it in the two sections. We think it might be because it helps avoid air bubbles.

Here it is fresh out of the oven. Look at how high it rose!

The center of the pan has a cylinder that is very large and the only thing we could find that would fit was a coffee cup! It was comical trying to explain to my dad why we needed it to be upside down and why the cake wouldn't fall out of it.

After it was all cooled we turned it over and it looks almost exactly like when my uncle made it for us.

We think the one side fell because it must not have had enough batter to make it all even inside.

My piece of "birthday" angel food cake! I think it looks like an alligator, and airplane, or a car. :)

Add fresh cut strawberries and you have perfection!

Friday, May 18, 2012

Food Friday - Angel Food Cake Fail!

Today's Food Friday is brought to you by my mother and my dumbness at the store.

We had to locate all of the ingredients listed for the recipe below:

Yield: 8 servings
12 egg whites (about 2 cups of liquid egg whites)
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon guar gum
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
8 packets stevia sweetener
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 cup vanilla egg- or whey-based protein powder
1/4 cup almond flour
3 tablespoons powdered egg whites

Next make sure to preheat the oven to 350 degrees and generously coat the fluted center and bottom only.

Crack and seperate all of the egg whites from the yokes.

My mom was the lucky one who got to do that.

So the comedy of errors that was this angel food cake started with me forgetting if I put the baking powder in the mix of cream of tartar, xanthan gum, guar gum, baking powder, stevia, vanilla and almond extracts. Causing me to have to dump the whole thing and start over. The second time I got it right... except for after the fact we realized I put to much baking powder. But I get ahead of myself.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine egg whites, cream of tartar, xanthan gum, guar gum, baking powder, stevia, vanilla and almond extracts. Beat on low for 30 seconds, then increase mixer to high and beat until very stiff peaks form, about 4 minutes. The mixture will be airy, voluminous and quite thick. Well, my moms beaters don't do slow. Our solution to mix with a spatula thing. We didn't have airy, voluminous and thick... we had eggly and clumpy and yellowy. When we finally decided that the mixing wasn't doing anything we did use a beater... but it didn't help much. We realized this was error number 2 (or 3 if you could having to start all over again).

Into a small bowl, sift together protein powder, almond flour and powdered egg whites. Sprinkle half of the dry ingredients over the egg whites. Run the mixer at medium for 5 seconds, just until the dry ingredients are incorporated. Sprinkle the remaining dry ingredients over the egg whites and mix again just to incorporate. Increase mixer speed to high and run for 5 seconds. When we were at the store we bought what we thought was the correct protein powder... oh man, were we ever wrong. It was green and it smelt disgusting. My mom remembered reading a part that said that if you wanted to make it chocolate sub in chocolate powder for the powdered egg whites. We did that... but it didn't help much. The batter was still green.

Use a silicone spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl and gently fold the mixture together once or twice. Transfer half of the mixture to the prepared pan, then use the spatula to smooth the top. Repeat with the remaining mixture. Firmly tap the pan on the counter to help eliminate air bubbles. We still aren't sure why they tell you to put 1/2 and then 1/2 again but we did it. Not much was going to save this as our friend tried the batter on the egg beater and proclaimed it was gross. I held out hope. My mom had made me cookies once that tasted horrid until they were cooked. This was going to be like that I exclaimed.

Bake for 35 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and overturn the pan and cool upside down. When cool, to release the cake, run a paring knife between the side of the pan and the cake. It can out of the oven and smelt yucky. We placed it upside down on a bowl as it had not risen very high.

We tasted it once it cooled. Awful. What a terrible birthday cake.

We tried again the next day to much better results. I'll share that one later. I can still imagine that taste in my mouth. Bleh.

P.S. Just in cause you are curious: Per serving: 80 calories; 2g fat; no saturated fat; no cholesterol; 14g protein; 4g carbohydrate; 1g fiber; 220mg sodium.