- Ever dreamt of a cake so light and fluffy
it's like a cloud of cake floating into your mouth?
Say hello to angel food cake.
This is delicious.
And if you've ever bought it in a store,
it's not the same thing.
It's a thousand times better homemade and so easy too.
Hey, you're watching Preppy Kitchen where I, John Kannell,
teach you to make delicious homemade dishes to share
with your family and friends.
Today, we're making angel food cake
and it's gonna go quick.
So let's get started.
This light and fluffy cake needs
a couple light and fluffy ingredients.
So we're not gonna use regular granulated sugar
and we're not gonna use all-purpose flour.
There are workarounds,
you can check them out on the blog post.
But, we are doing things the right way so,
one cup of cake flour, which is 100 grams.
It's a little lighter.
There we go.
Instead of using regular granulated sugar,
we're using super fine or extra fine sugar.
It just has much finer crystals.
See this.
This is gonna make a difference.
If you don't have it,
or if it's not available at your market,
just go ahead and use the regular granulated sugar.
But really whiz, whiz, whiz, whiz,
whiz, whiz, whiz, whiz it up.
Because you want to break them apart.
It makes a difference in the meringue.
If you don't have a food processor
and you don't have it at your local store,
use the granulated sugar but we'll talk about that later.
All right, so, I want to add in 3/4 of a cup.
This pulse.
Pulse, pulse, pulse, pulse.
You'll be here for a few minutes, don't worry.
So this might seem like the finest of powders
but we're actually going to sift it a couple of times.
An angel food cake is this amazing concoction
of meringue with a little bit of flour mixed in.
Just enough to give it enough structure
that changes it from a meringue into a cake.
So we don't want to weigh that meringue down
which is why we're gonna be whizzing and sifting
and whizzing and sifting.
It might seem like a big deal but it really isn't.
It just takes a few minutes.
Just a little bit more.
This is good, we've sifted it a few times,
it's been whizzed a bunch
and it's basically a cloud of flour.
It might float away with some sugar mixed in.
All right, set this aside, clean up your work space.
Then we have some eggs to separate and we're almost done.
It's super fast.
So this is Brian's new, favorite cake.
He totally forgot about it but I was recipe testing it
and he was like munch, munch, munch.
Munch, munch, munch.
And he's like, "Oh my gosh, this is so good."
So he's been mentioning it several times,
so I was like I have got to make this again.
I'm gonna show my friends on YouTube how to do it.
And he's gonna get the whole cake too.
One piece for me, the rest for him.
Ten egg whites or about a cup and 1/4.
And I wanna say about a cup and 1/4 because I swear,
I go to the market sometimes
and there's a tiny, little baby egg
and it's labeled extra large.
And I'm like, girl, stop lying.
I happen to have two egg whites left over
from a previous recipe I did earlier today,
so I'm adding that into the pile.
And now what we wanna do is break the eggs
into that small bowl.
And you can separate the egg whites however you like.
I'm using my clean hands.
And the yolks go in one bowl for later
and then the egg whites go in there.
Until you're done.
In case you're wondering, those yolks are amazing
to make a French buttercream.
Click up here for that.
It is like the star of buttercreams and it needs egg yolks.
So, if you ever make a meringue or whatever else,
make some French buttercream.
You'll be so happy you did.
You could also make pastry cream.
Click up here for my pastry cream recipe.
Pastry cream is perfect for fruit tarts
and filling chocolate eclairs.
And you can click up here for my chocolate eclair recipe.
There's so many good uses for egg yolks.
I'm sorry, okay.
I'll just get back to my egg cracking now.
Exactly a cup and 1/4.
See and that's like the whole egg.
It's just there's no rhyme or reason.
So just go ahead and measure the egg whites out.
This is gonna go into the stand mixer after a quick wash up.
Okay, now for the fun part.
We're making our meringue.
First off, one and 1/4 cups of egg whites.
Right into that very clean bowl.
And if you have any concerns about your dishwasher at home,
one, give them a stern talking to.
And two, go ahead and wipe the bowl down
with either some lemon juice or vinegar.
Just to make sure you want it squeaky clean.
Next we add in 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
And then, to stabilize the egg whites,
we're gonna add in one and 1/4 teaspoons of cream of tartar.
So cream of tartar is a by-product of wine making.
Delicious.
But it's actually an acid.
The acid will help stabilize the eggs
and give you a nice meringue.
And I'm gonna go ahead and add in the vanilla,
right around now.
One teaspoon.
A nice vanilla.
Makes all the difference.
This is the only flavor you're adding to the cake
so choose a good one.
Start off whisking on low.
Go higher.
You're gonna wait for this to froth up.
Once it gets frothy, we'll start adding in our last
3/4 of a cup of super fine sugar.
Look how super fine this is.
Wow.
The air actually smells sweeter now.
(laughs)
Okay, so it's frothing up.
I'm gonna move it onto high.
And your gonna drizzle this in a tablespoon at a time.
Pretend that, okay, pause this for a second.
Imagine that you have all the time in the world
to add this sugar in.
Because adding it in slowly makes for a better meringue.
That's pretty slow.
That's slow.
Drizzle, drizzle, drizzle.
This is a nice time to think about your life choices.
Are you happy?
Would you like things to be different?
Would this cake make them better?
It will.
Look at that meringue.
See how fluffy it is.
Pretty crazy.
So relaxing, as I actually mesmerizing.
Last little bit.
Now, I'm not done yet but look at this.
Look at this.
I wish you could feel how thick and crazy that is.
It's so strong.
It's like marshmallows.
And it's very nice and stiff peak.
Do you, what?
What is this?
This is amazing.
Just want to like make sure
there's nothing hanging out at the bottom.
Okay, this is a cloudy dream.
It's gonna be kinda messy but bear with me.
All right, almost done.
Now, we're gonna fold in our flour.
So add in about 1/4 cup, sprinkle it in,
of the flour sugar mixture.
And we're gonna fold it.
So when you fold,
and I don't have the superstar folding technique,
but all you're doing is bringing it from the bottom,
cutting through the middle and swirling it.
And I like to move my bowl around.
And what you're doing is your incorporating
the dry ingredients without collapsing
all those billions of air bubbles that are in there.
Or collapsing fewer at least, too.
Doing this gives you a fluffy, amazing cake.
My very most favorite cake, German chocolate cake,
which you can click up here for,
is made with an egg white, as well.
So you can fold in egg whites
for a really fluffy, fine cake.
It tastes so good.
Ooh, the second you're harsh with the batter,
everything collapses.
You'll be like (crushing sound).
It's just like, it gives away instantly.
That's why we're swooping up and cutting down.
Everything's folded in and look at this batter.
What?
It's still very meringue-y.
And look those are stiff peaks.
That is some good folding technique
because you have a meringue, still a stiff peak
but you folded in that full cup of flour
and the additional sugar.
Unlike every single other cake in the world,
you are not gonna do anything to this pan.
It needs to be squeaky clean.
Why?
Because in order for the meringue to claw its way up
and hold its place there, it needs something to hold onto.
So you have this, kind of, matte finish aluminum.
And if you greased it, it would just collapse.
So you don't want to do that.
You're gonna have to cut it out carefully
but it has to be clean.
It's a special cake.
So now we're going to carefully,
the cleaner you can do this the less you have to clean
the edge later because I don't like having burnt cake
on the edge of my pan.
Well, that didn't work, so let's just plop this in.
So that's totally not cool.
We have to smooth all of that out.
The kids' are wondering.
Your goal right now is to get all this batter in here,
which is quite resilient mind you,
without having huge air bubbles in.
Those are not optimal.
No one wants to eat an air bubble,
you want delicious angel food cake, right?
So gently smooth it down.
This drives me crazy, I'm just gonna clean the edge off.
If you've ever baked something
and you get those little raggedy pieces
on the side of the pan.
They burn in and it's not attractive.
So it's an optional step
but I like to clean the side of the pan off.
All right, so right now I'm just using a skewer
and going through here and swirling it around.
Because I want to break up any of the larger air bubbles
that are hanging out there.
Just make sure the batter is all the way at the bottom.
Totally worthwhile.
Mm. This is gonna go into the oven at 350 degrees
for about 40 minutes
or until the top is nice and golden brown
and springy to the touch in the middle.
Out of the oven, super hot.
And now it has to cool upside down for an hour.
The deal is that if you let it cool right side up,
it would sink on it, it would just sink a little bit.
So you want it to stiffen up a little bit,
or firm up after it's out of the oven upside down
so it's at maximum fluffiness.
So I have this on a cooling rack just to protect the marble,
to be honest, you guys put it directly on your counter
and this can just hang out someplace.
Come to room temperature, it'll be about an hour.
It's worth it.
Once your angel food cake is totally cooled,
it's time to cut it out.
So gently and carefully cut along the side
as close to the metal as possible.
Do the same for that interior tube and then lift it out.
Now it's time to cut the bottom off, once again,
as close to the metal as possible.
And then invert it onto a cake stand, cake plate,
whatever you want.
This is perfect on its own
or with a giant tub of whipped cream.
Just like pour the whipped cream on top
and it's the perfect vehicle for that.
I will just be eating it like this
'cause it's like cake bread.
If you like this recipe, check out my cinnamon rolls.
They are delicious and so amazing in a very different way.
But for now it's time for a bite.
It's so good.
Look at this.
Look at that fluff.
If you like my videos, hit that like button and subscribe.
And I'll see you in the next video,
with those cinnamon rolls.