I remember the first angel food cake I made. It was about 2 inches tall because I had never done anything with egg whites before. Since then (and watching lots of FoodTV), I've learned multiple things you can do to make sure your angel food cake comes out light, airy, and tall.
The one thing you almost never see a recipe for is whole wheat angel food cake. It's known for being a very light cake and relatively healthy dessert, but I get pretty picky about white flour. I just have a difficult time justifying eating something that could be so much healthier with an extremely easy substitution that, to me, tastes just as good. White flour has no fiber, so the carbohydrates are processed at least as fast as sugar, which will leave you feeling tired and fatigued shortly after you eat it. It does not make you feel good. At least sugar tastes sweet, so you get something out of it besides its lack of nutrition.
Anyway, one day I decided to try making an angel food cake with 100% whole wheat flour, and it worked. Go figure! Just like recipes for pancakes, they all claim you can only substitute 1/2 of the flour for whole wheat flour. Although it will very slightly affect the taste for some, I argue it is worth it. So here's my first weekly featured recipe. Let me know what you think!
Whole Wheat Angel Food Cake
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole wheat flour, sifted
12 egg whites (the closer to room temperature the better, should be between 1 3/4 cups to 2 cups)
1/4 cup warm water
extract of your choice (I use a combination of 1 tsp almond extract, 2 tsp vanilla extract, and lemon zest)
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar (you can sub 1 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar or lemon juice -- this is used to stabilize the egg white)
1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F and separate your eggs. I do this by cracking each egg, one at a time, into a cup/small bowl. I then life the yolk out with my hands. Have your work station organized so you can easily clean it after this step because you don't want raw eggs everywhere. I find separating them with my hands is the most reliable way without breaking a yolk. You can shift it between both halves of the broken egg shell, letting the white fall through, leaving the yolk behind. Whichever you choose, end up with the egg whites in a large enough bowl so they won't over flow when you whip them -- I use my Kitchen Aid for this, but you could use a hand mixer or (dare I say it) whip them by hand. I highly recommend using an electric mixer, though.
Tip for room temperature eggs: I rarely decide to bake things far enough ahead of time to allow any of the ingredients to come to room temperature. You're going to want room temperature eggs for this recipe, though. The colder the eggs are, the less height you'll get from them when you whip them, and the heavier your cake will be. This is what I do. Take all 12 of your cold eggs and put them in a medium sized bowl. Let the tap water run until it is slightly too hot to touch. Pour this over the eggs until covered. Let them sit in the water for a few minutes. When you think they're ready, take one out and hold it in your hand. It will slowly become cool, and if it becomes too cool, put it back in, dump some of the water out, and fill with more warm water. This little trick takes 5 minutes, tops.
2. Sift together half the sugar and whole wheat flour (measure all the sugar and then estimate half -- you don't have to be exact). Some bran will be left in the sifter -- you can add this back to the sugar/flour mixture.
3. Beat egg whites and water on medium/low until bubbly. Slowly increase speed to medium. Add extracts, cream of tartar, salt, and to egg whites. Increase speed to medium/high.
4. When eggs are frothy (still liquid but very bubbly), begin adding sugar (NOT the sugar/flour). Take at least 10 seconds to gently add all the sugar while whipping them. Increase speed high and whip until egg whites are glossy, white, and hold a medium peak. A medium peak occurs when you lift the beater out of the egg whites and they form a peak, but just slightly fall down again.
5. Your egg whites should have expanded a lot -- now is the slightly tricky part. With a rubber scraper or spatula, you want to incorporate the flour/sugar mixture without losing all the air you just incorporated into the egg whites. So, add 1/3 of the mixture at a time, gently folding to incorporate. Folding is done by moving the spatula in a circular motion below the surface and then coming back up around the sides, cutting into the mixture in the middle and then coming up around the sides again. Once all the flour is added (you should have some pockets of flour that aren't incorporated), gently mix a couple times to break up the pockets of flour, but don't mix too much. The cake will not rise -- all of the volume comes from the air in the egg whites.
6. Add batter to an ungreased 2-piece angel food cake pan. You can use also make cupcakes or a loaf, if you want! Just remember it will not rise -- all the volume is in the air. Also, add parchment to the bottom of the loaf pan if using because you will be able to scrape the sides, but not the bottom -- it would be tragic if the beautiful angel food cake were to break on its way out of the pan.
7. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 30-40 minutes, until golden brown but still puffy on top. Invert on legs or the top of a bottle of wine to cool completely. Scrape outside and inner circles in single motions, remove the bottom half, then loosen cake from the bottom. Place platter over the cake and invert to serve.
8. Garnish with macerated berries (add sugar to berries until they give off their juices) and yogurt-cream!
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