Angel Food Cakes
The Angel food cake is a foam cake.

It is made from a simple meringue or egg whites beaten with sugar. Sometimes cream of tartar is added to the egg whites during beating to help stabilize them.

The meringue is then slowly folded together with a relatively small amount cake flour for stability and texture. Angel food cakes are made without egg yolks or fat of any kind or chemical leavening, such as baking powder and/or baking soda. 

The batter is then baked in an ungreased Angel Food Cake Pan (2-part pan) in a moderate, 350 degree F preheated oven for about 45 minutes. The beaten egg whites are the leavening and expand in the hot oven, causing the cake to rise to the rim of the 4-inch tall pan, giving it a light, airy texture. When the cake is done baking, is needs to be cooled in its pan up-side-down, usually taking about 2 hours, before it can be unmolded and served.

An Angel food cake is one of the most versatile cake choices around. It is also fat free and fits in with any diet. It's a naturally plain cake that tastes as delicious as is or dressed up. Angel food cake batters can be easily flavored with different extracts, such as vanilla, almond, lemon or orange.  You can add in other ingredients, such as crushed peppermint candies, finely chopped well-drained maraschino cherries, grated semisweet chocolate or chocolate chips (mini's are the best, if you can find). A simple garnish of fresh fruit complements any angel food cake.

ANGEL FOOD CAKE INGREDIENTS AND TIPS: 

The kind and proportion of ingredients, careful mixing and the temperature of baking are important to making an Angel food cake of good quality.

You want the beaten egg whites to yield the best volume because they are the sole source of leavening. There are proven egg white handling and beating techniques you can follow for best results. Some are: separate the yolks from the whites while the eggs are still cold. You don't have to let them come to room temperature before beating; they will whip to the same volume, although they may take a bit longer to do so. The bowl in which you whip egg whites needs to immaculately clean and completely grease-free. Even the tiniest bit of grease (or egg yolk) will cause them to break down into a pathetic soup. It's best to use metal or glass mixing bowls; plastic bowls are ok, too, but they often retain traces of grease which will prevent the egg whites from reaching full volume. Copper bowls are the best to use for maximum egg-white whipping volume.

The challenge in making a perfect meringue is neither to under- nor overbeat the eggs. Underbeating introduces too little air, and the batter will rise inadequately. If overbeaten, the mixture can separate. The watchwords are "stiff but not dry" and "glossy" or whatever the recipe suggests. Proper meringue should be stark white with a sheen. It is truly beautiful.

Important Angel food cake egg white beating tips:
+ Always beat the whites right before folding them into the batter; they lose volume if allowed to stand, even for just a few minutes. 
+ Not beating enough or not folding the egg whites completely into the batter can cause coarse, low-volume cakes.
+ Beating or folding too much will break down the egg white foam, and you'll end up with a compact cake.

Cream of tartar is usually added to lower the pH and thus stabilize and whiten the egg white foam and produce a finer grained cake.

Sugar is added not only for its flavoring action and stabilizing effect on egg white proteins, but it also acts as a tenderizer, counterbalancing the effects of egg protein and flour. After adding the sugar, rub just a bit of meringue between thumb and forefinger to feel if it has dissolved.

Sugar, preferably superfine,  because it dissolves quickly, is usually added to the egg whites while beating. Some recipes have you add it afterwards by folding in the sugar a tablespoonful at a time. 

If you can’t find superfine sugar, pulse your regular white sugar in the food processor for a few minutes until it’s superfine. The sugar will scratch the plastic bowl of your processor. Pulsing will help to prevent some of this.  

Bleached cake flour (not self-rising) is used to ensure the lightest possible cake since it is very low in protein. Never use hard whole wheat flour or your cake will be very heavy. If you must use whole wheat, use soft PASTRY flour, it will not rise as high as the cake flour but it will be tasty. You can blend 50 % cake flour with 50% whole wheat PASTRY flour for a texture somewhere in between.

Gingerly fold in when the the egg whites and the flour are almost combined, adding pinches at a time.  Don’t over do it or you will deflate the egg whites.

BAKING AND COOLING: Regular pound cakes can be baked in a greased and floured tube pan, left to cool in the pan for 20 minutes, and then turned out and left to cool completely on a rack. 

But angel food and chiffon batters need to be poured into an ungreased shiny tube or angel food cake pan before baking. The angel and chiffon cakes cling to the sides of the pan as they bake. 

The Angel food cake batter starts deflating after 5 minutes, so it must be placed in its pan and baked without delay. Gingerly scoop the batter with a large rubber spatula into an ungreased pan, or whatever the recipe calls for.

Before placing in the oven, to prevent air pockets from forming in the body of the cake, I like to cut through batter with a knife only once or twice to remove some. Then the cake is immediately baked in a well-preheated oven. 

As long as an Angel or Sponge cake "sings" in the oven, it is really the eggs releasing steam and is not done. When the "singing" stops and the cake is nicely browned and springy to the touch, take it from the oven. Also, Angel food cakes will not shrink from the sides of the pan as other cakes do when baked, and the cracks in its crust should be dry.  

When done, proper cooling is just as important as baking. The cake is inverted in its pan to cool which prevents its structure from shrinking or falling, giving it the open texture that's characteristic of these cakes. If placed to cool on a rack, it would deflate much of that hard-earned volume.  

On some tube pans, there are three or stubby legs that extend slightly higher than the edge that the inverted pan can rest on. This is so you don't squish the top of the cake. I do not rest my pan on them because I find that the narrow space created in between the inverted cake and the countertop, causing condensation to form on the cake's top while cooling. If your tin does not have feet, use a narrow-neck bottle or funnel to fit through the hole of the center of the pan. 

Let the cake stay until completely cooled.  

SERVING: When cool, gently loosen the sides of cake with a thin-bladed, flexible knife, moving the knife firmly in one direction; do not use a sawing motion. Slowly trace around the perimeter of the inner tube and then around the outer edge of the cake.

When the sides are free, push up on the removable bottom to remove the cake from the sides. Tilt the cake and gently tap the bottom of the pan against the counter to loosen the cake, rotating as you do so, until the cake appears free. Cover the cake with a rack or a plate, and at the same time that you invert the cake onto the work surface, tap it firmly on the surface. Lift the pan from the cake.