Angel Food Cake

Without question my Mom makes the best angel food cake I have ever tasted. They're soft, fluffy, and high. I have tried hard to perfect the art and I can get soft and fluffy with good flavor but so far I have not achieved height. But I shall persevere till I get it right, and enjoy the results of the attempts in the process. I can assure you of one thing that does not work and that is measuring some ingredients for two cakes and using only enough egg whites for one. Yep, that's what I did today. Long story short,haste really does make waste. So I started over, and measured properly, and the results were much better! :)

Ingredients:

Preheat oven to 300°

1¼ cups sifted cake flour,

(I use Swan's Down)

1 cup white sugar

Sift the flour before measuring and then sift the sugar and flour together three times.

2 cups egg whites,

(approximately 1 dozen eggs)

beat until frothy-

then add:

1½ teaspoons cream of tartar

2 teaspoons clear vanilla*

Beat until stiff peaks form-

                                                                                then add:
                                                                          1 cup sifted sugar,
                   Add this sugar a few tablespoons at a time and beat until mixture looks glossy.

Now is when you add the sifted flour/sugar mixture with a sturdy wire wisk. Again, don't add it all at once. Sprinkle a few tablespoons at a time over the batter and using the wisk, fold in towards the center of the bowl with quick wrist movements. You don't want to overwork the batter. Spoon into an angel food cake pan and spread evenly. Then take a knife and cut through batter to get rid of air bubbles.

Bake at 300° for 30 minutes and then increase heat to 375° for another 15 minutes. Invert onto a long necked bottle, I use Worcestershire Sauce bottles or something in that line.

Let cool completely. Remove from bottle and run a sharp knife along the edges and invert onto a serving plate. We love to eat them plain, they never last long enough to bother with icing, but they are also yummy with icing.

*I like to use clear vanilla for a plain white cake but if you don't have any you can use the regular dark kind.

I also like to make flavored cakes and to do this you sustitute a 2/3 cup of sugar with that amount of dry jello of your choice. We like the strawberry ones.

                                                                             Enjoy!

Be Blessed!