I am starting off my education as a baker with Baking School: Fundamentals by Baker Bettie. While this is the beginning of my “formal” culinary education, I am not new to baking, so I watched through the first 6 videos before coming to a project that I just had to bake: angel food cake. This project combines prompts to pre-read the full recipe (twice) before baking, create a mise en place, and to explore sugar’s role in leavening baked goods.
I read through the recipe fully the day before baking, then checked to see which ingredients I had in stock and which I needed to buy. I ran out to the store to buy an angel food cake pan and about a million eggs (just kidding, the recipe only uses 9).
The morning of the bake I started by putting my eggs on the counter to warm up to room temperature. While the eggs warmed up I cleaned my kitchen. I am a chaotic baker most of the time, but I want to change that, and the best way to create new habits is lots and lots of practice. Once my workspace was clean and I had eaten some breakfast, it was time to bake.
I prepared my mise en place, then combined my dry ingredients with a whisk as directed.
Then I began whipping my eggs. I first whipped the egg whites alone, then I added Cream of Tartar and whipped again. Once the egg whites began to gain volume I slowed down the mixer and added the sugar slowly.
When the sugar was incorporated I increased the speed and whipped to stiff peaks. The egg whites whipped up more quickly than I expected, so I added the lemon zest a little later than directed when the egg whites were already at stiff peaks.
With my eggs whipped to within an inch of their lives, I sprinkled the flour on top and gently folded it in. The folding process took me a little longer than the recommended 15-20 seconds because I was being extremely careful to not deflate the eggs while also making sure the dry ingredients were fully incorporated. Even so, I found some pockets of dry ingredients that I had to gently stir in as I was pouring the batter into the pan.
I smoothed the top of the batter and put it in the oven. I checked on the cake at 30 minutes. It had barely any browning and the toothpick did not come out clean. At 35 minutes the top was slightly browned and there were only a few crumbs on the toothpick. At 4 minutes the top of the cake was beautifully brown and no crumbs stuck to the toothpick when I tested the cake.
I took the cake out of the oven and inverted it (while still in the pan) over a wire rack to cool.
While the cake cooled I prepared my toppings. Baker Bettie serves her angel food cake with whipped cream and strawberry sauce. I wanted to make a sauce from fresh mulberries I grew in my garden. I followed the directions to make a fresh berry sauce, using mulberries, lemon juice, and lemon zest. I gathered my mise en place, then combined the water, lemon juice, sugar, and corn starch and whisked to combine.
Then I added the berries and turned on the heat. It was fascinating to see the liquid change colour from white to pink to red and to see the change in viscosity as the corn starch cooked and some of the berries burst.
While the berry sauce was cooling I removed the cake from the pan. I used an offset spatula to scrape around the edges and center of the pan, but since I have a 1-piece tube pan the top of the cake didn’t want to release and I had to tug it upwards very gently with the tips of my fingers to get it to release from the pan.The cake didn’t seem to suffer from this treatment. I noticed that my cake cooled a little lopsided. I think the pan was slightly tilted to one side while cooling, which led to the slight lean. My husband was kind enough to make the whipped cream. He used heavy cream, sugar to taste, and the tiniest bit of vanilla, and whipped it by hand.
Tasting Notes: The cake is very light and moist. It does not taste eggy at all. The first flavor I noticed was sweetness (the cake does, after all, contain as much sugar as egg white by weight), and then lemon. The whipped cream adds fat and sweetness, and the berry sauce adds both sweet and sour berry flavors. All in all, this is a delicious cake, not at all like the dry, flavorless Angel Food cakes one buys at the grocey store. Pair this cake with White Port for the ultimate dessert experience.
Until the next time: may your yeast always rise and your flour never run out.
A Baker's Education 