I do a lot of recipes here on Tasting History that are to say the least vague.
Add enough nutmeg.
Make a crust.
Salt to taste.
One of my Patreon patreons was even telling me that he found an old Jewish recipe that
measured things in Yarzeit candles, which are little candles used to commemorate the
anniversary of a death.
But I guess they're a fairly standard size.
Anyway, these things can be fun to decipher, obviously I've created an entire show around
it
but we wouldn't expect that on a modern cookbook.
But in 1896 Fannie Farmer set out to change all that.
And today we are making her recipe for angel cake.
So thank you to Trade coffee for sponsoring this video as we celebrate the well-written
recipes of Fannie Farmer, this time on Tasting History.
So I chose today's dish based on a request from my friend Shelley who's birthday it is
this month, and she loves angel food cake.
So this is for you, happy birthday Shelley.
Now this recipe is for angel cake, also known as angel food cake.
And it's thought to be called so because if an angel ate it, it is so light that they
could still fly up to heaven.
And really the recipe hasn't changed all that much since the 1890s,
so let's see if Miss Farmer's recipe lives up to the reputation.
So first she gives us nice specific ingredient amounts which we will discuss later.
But then she gives instructions that say, "Beat whites of eggs until frothy; add cream
of tartar,
and continue beating until eggs are stiff; then add sugar gradually.
Fold in flour mixed with salt and sifted four times and add vanilla.
Bake forty-five to fifty minutes in an unbuttered angel-cake pan.
After cake has risen and begins to brown, cover with a buttered paper."
In the words of Dr. Evil "pretty standard really".
And for the ingredients she calls for: whites, 8 eggs.
Interestingly in a later edition she changes this to read one cup of egg whites which is
actually a better way of measuring them.
And it's usually thought that eggs back in the 19th century were quite a bit smaller
than modern eggs so I decided to do 8 egg whites and see how much that turned out to
be,
and 8 large egg whites was exactly 1 cup.
So who knows what kind of eggs she was using.
There were a lot more varieties than there are today.
In the 'Grocers' Hand-Book and Directory' from about the same time it tells about all
the different chicken egg varieties that were available in Philadelphia.
"Black Spanish, Houdans, La Fleches, and Creve Coueres...
Leghorns, Cochins, Brahmins, Polands, Dorkings, Games, Sultans and Hamburgs."
Then it says that each chicken produces wildly different eggs which then is a good thing
that she switched over to volume, and I wish that actually more recipes today did that
because very few do or even better went by weight.
That would be best.
1 Teaspoon cream of tartar, 1 cup or 200 grams of sugar.
Super fine sugar is what you want.
3/4 cup or 85 grams of flour.
Cake flour works best for this.
1/4 teaspoon of salt and 3/4 teaspoon of vanilla.
Now with any cake, but especially a light one like this, one might want a cup of coffee.
And so I will have a cup of of coffee courtesy of our sponsor Trade.
I've been loving my deliveries from Trade lately because I'm getting to know a lot of
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Today I am drinking Aroma del Valle from Sterling Coffee Roasters in Portland.
The beans are from Peru and they have hints of pistachio and honey.
It's perfect because I do tend to like sweeter things and this coffee has those notes.
I also get some wonderful chocolate from it, which you can't go wrong with that.
And viewers of Tasting History will get their first bag free, including free shipping.
Just click the link in the description and take your quiz to get started.
Now before I have another cup, I think I should probably bake this cake.
So first preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, 175 Celsius and sift your flour
and salt into a bowl.
She calls for it to be done four times which is exactly what I did.
Then beat your egg whites on low until foamy, and then add in the cream of tartar
and beat them until you get peaks.
Now she says to beat them until they're stiff but that's kinda subjective.
You don't want them too, too stiff at this point because when you add the sugar in then
things go awry.
So kinda go on the lighter side of stiff, just make sure that they kinda hold up on
their own.
One reason angel food cake became so popular at this time was because of whisking these
eggs.
Before the 1870s it would've taken you like 30 or 40 minutes to get those stiff peaks.
But in 1870 Turner Williams invented the two whisk hand crank egg beater.
And boy am I sure glad that he did.
Granted I now use an electric one but even so it was a step in the right direction.
Also it was a great way to use up egg whites that were left over after all the egg yolks
used to make the wonderful custards that were really popular at the time.
And if you're looking to use up your yolks I have a wonderful recipe up here for a Medieval
egg custard tart that is divine.
Now once your peaks are achieved start beating in the sugar a little at a time.
Then once it's all incorporated you can begin folding in the flour.
Now the only leavener in this cake is the air trapped in the flour and the egg whites
so you want to be super, super gentle so you're not knocking all the air.
Otherwise you get a flat cake.
But this is also why the cake was so popular with the temperance movement.
It was because it didn't have yeast which they associated with beer.
Heavens to Betsy!
Now one thing that is different about Miss Farmer's recipe from a modern recipe is when
she adds the vanilla.
Usually it would've already been done, she adds at it at the very, very end.
Again folding it in, so be very, very gentle with it.
Then take your angel food cake pan and gently spoon in the batter.
As she says make sure it's not buttered or has any kind of spray because the batter needs
to be able to kinda creep up the sides of the pan during the rise.
And if you put anything slick on there it'll just slump down.
Then set it on the oven on one of the lower racks for 45-50 minutes.
And while you wait for it to bake, let me tell you just why this lady was so darn influential.
Fannie Merritt Farmer was born in Boston in 1857.
But at the age of 16 she suffered a paralytic stroke that took her out of high school and
left her homebound.
Now her mother nursed her back to health as well as she could until Fannie was finally
able to get around the kitchen.
Which is when she learned how to cook.
And she eventually turned her parents house into a boarding house which was famous for
the wonderful meals that Fannie was cooking.
But cookbooks then were a lot less instructive so she kinda hit a wall in her education.
And so at the age of 30, able to walk albeit with a limp, she enrolled in the Boston Cooking
School.
Now at this time the school focused on teaching domestic cooks, i.e. cooks who worked in the
houses of the middle class and wealthy families of Boston.
It was also the beginning of what was known as the domestic science movement.
This focused on the science, sometimes pseduo-science, of different ingredients and how those ingredients
could make up a proper diet and nutrition.
It was also a break through time in the cleanliness standards of a kitchen.
It was just a few years after Joseph Lister developed practical applications of germ theory
when he had the gall to suggest that it might be a good idea to wash your hands and instruments
when going from surgery to surgery.
Side note, there is a wonderful book called 'The Butchering Art' which is all about Joseph
Lister and this period in surgical history.
It's absolutely fantastic, I'll put a link in the description to where you can read,
or listen to that.
Anyway, his ideas of sanitation in the operating theater ended up moving over to the kitchen
right around the time Fannie Farmer was coming up with her ideas for her cookbook.
Now as students came and went from the school, Fannie kinda stuck around like that 21 year
old football player who still hangs around high school even though he graduated three
years ago.
But unlike him, they made her principal.
And one of her first orders of business was to update Mrs. Lincoln's 'Boston Cook Book"
which had been written by an earlier principal named, not surprisingly, Mrs. Lincoln.
And it had been the principle text that was used in the school.
Fannie's updated version called 'The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book' was published in
1896.
But the publisher, Little Browning Company, didn't think it would do very well so they
only printed 3,000 in that first run and they made her pay for it.
But in return she got to keep all of the rights and pretty much all of the profit.
And to quote Pretty Woman, "Big mistake.
Big.
Huge."
Because the book ended up selling hundreds of thousands of copies during her lifetime,
and millions ever since.
They had to feel dumber than that manager that dumped The Beatles.
Now many people credit for her coming up with the modern recipe.
Standard temperatures, cook times, and quantities of ingredients.
But she didn't.
Ingredient quantities had appeared in recipes for millenia, albeit it though very inconsistently.
But they had been very common in the recent decades.
Now cook times, those were pretty new but again she wasn't the first.
And set oven temperatures?
Well, that wouldn't happen for another 20 years.
No, her biggest contribution was the level measure.
"Good judgement, with experience, has taught some to measure by sight; but the majority
need definite guides."
And that is true, especially for people who haven't been cooking that long, a measuring
cup is an invaluable tool.
But it turns out that not everybody used them the same way.
"To measure a cupful, put in the ingredients by spoonfuls or from a scoop, round slightly,
and level with a case knife, care being taken not to shake the cup."
I mean that kinda seems like common sense now but that was revolutionary.
It was new information for most people.
But with some ingredients, mainly flour, the difference between spooning it into a measuring
cup
and scooping can mean a huge world of difference because flower will compact.
Also, the actual like
humidity in the air can alter the amount of flour,
so the best way to measure it would actually be in grams or weight,
that she wasn't doing but it's a step in the right direction.
She also explained different ingredients to people who hadn't come across them.
"Cayenne pepper is the powdered pop of capsicum
grown on the eastern coast of Africa and Zanzibar."
It would probably be more helpful if she said oh by the way, it's super spicy.
But she didn't.
But it's a start.
You know in the days before Google.
This was-
This was big.
So while she didn't actually develop the modern recipe, she did help to kinda standardize
it.
And make it available to the masses.
The school was geared towards those who could afford professional help, professional cooks
at their house
but not everyone could afford that.
The book everyone pretty much could afford.
It actually became so popular as a wedding gift
that it was known as the bride's Bible.
Kind of a different time.
It was also a different time when the Boston Globe descried Miss Farmer as
"The New England spinster scholma'am who taught millions of women the way to a man's heart."
Sure.
In the same article which is from 1947 by the way, they talk about subsequent editions
being updated to keep up with the times.
"Because corned beef has gone ritzy these days,
one would now look in vain for the statement she once printed: 'Corned beef furnishes bulk
to the poor man's diet.'"
The book became so popular with housewives that in 1902 she left the Boston Cooking School
and founded Miss Farmer's School of Cookery which focused more on teaching housewives
rather than hired help.
This was during a time when a lot of people were starting to give up their servants.
She also really began focusing more on diet and nutrition writing a new cook book
'Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent.'
And she even became a guest lecturer at Harvard Medical School
where she lectured up to 10 days before she died in 1915.
So even though she may be credited with a bit more invention than she's actually responsible
for,
and those who really enjoy freedom in the kitchen might find some of her recipes rather
tedious
I do not.
I appreciate a well written recipe so thank you Miss Farmer for all you did for 20th century
cooking.
Though I may be speaking too soon seeing as we haven't actually tried this angel cake.
Now she mentions that if your cake is browning too much that you can put some buttered paper
on top.
It's probably not necessary with a modern oven but if you are browning too soon go ahead
and add it.
Now at about 40 minutes you want to start checking the cake by inserting a wooden skewer
or toothpick, and pulling it out
and if it's dry that means the cake is done.
Now with angel food cake it is imperative that it cools completely, about 3 hours.
So take it out and then turn it upside down.
Many tins will have these little feet on them for this reason, but if yours doesn't then
just set it on a wire rack.
After 3 hours if it doesn't release from the tin on its own just take a sharp knife and
run it around the edge and it should release.
And here we are, Miss Fannie Farmer's angel cake from 1896.
It's gorgeous.
Let me just tell you.
I mean it looks so fluffy, and I think she did a good job, but lets taste it.
The thing with angel food cake is that it's so spongey, it's almost kinda hard to cut
through.
Here we go.
So I'm just going to try it plain at first.
It's perfect.
I mean you get the vanilla
The flavor of angel food cake is very light, unassuming.
I love that kinda toothy, chewy quality to it.
Like it takes a second to get into it, and then you do and it kinda just-
so soft.
It's really wonderful.
I'm actually going to try it with some of the raspberry puree
that I made in the last episode on Escoffier and peach melba cus I made a lot.
*hums random song
Yeah, this is going to be good.
I WAS RIGHT!
So thank you to Trade for sponsoring this video.
Just click on the link in the description to get your first bag for free
and make sure to follow me on Instagram @tastinghistorywithmaxmiller.
And I will see you next time on Tasting History.
You really don't need a fork.
*monch
Maybe I should... but hm!
Wonderful.