Thursday, April 24, 2008

Summer Single Serve#1: Angel Food Cake























Angel food cake is a great figure friendly light summer cake. It has no fat, i.e no butter , no yolks, no oil- not even a drop. It is made from the simplest of ingredients: egg whites, all purpose flour, sugar and salt. Compare these four ingredients to the 18 found in a Boxed angel food cake mix,"Sugar, Wheat Flour Bleached, Egg White, Corn Starch, Leavening (Baking Soda, Citric Acid), Modified Corn Starch, Corn Syrup, Calcium Chloride, Corn, Modified Soy Protein, Salt, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean or Cottonseed Oil, Cellulose Gum, Artificial Flavor, Dextrose, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (A Whipping Aid), Color (Yellow 5 & 6, Red 40, Blue 1), Nonfat Milk."

When you think about it, an angel food cake is really just a souffle. Souffles are single serve all the time right? Make a little cake all for your self with fresh fruits and a good book, you are all set for a long hot afternoon.

Make your own angel food cake mix: Mix together thoroughly Cake flour 1 CUP, Confectioners sugar 1 CUP and salt 1 TSP in a zip lock bag and keep in a dry cool place like the referigerator. Makes 8 single serves.

To bake a single serve: Whenever you want to make a single serve, take 1/4rth cup of the dry mixture.Turn on oven to 350 F to preheat. Beat 1 extra large egg white with 1 tbsp of sugar and a drop of lemon juice, until stiff . Fold the flour into the egg white gently.Spray one ramekin ( approximately 2 X 2 x 2 inches) with pam. Then put in a couple of tablespoons of sugar and rotate the ramekin until he walls of the ramekin are evenly coated with sugar. Tap out any excess.Fill 3/4rth of the ramekin with the folded mixture. Bake at 350F for around 20 minutes. Makes one single serve with approximately 150 calories and no calories from fat.

Cool Down Usually you must invert the angel food cake pan on top of a bottle or something similiar to cool down for around two to three hours. The ramekins are very difficult to turn upside down, especially when hot. So turn them on their sides, that way the angel food cake will get a chance to cool down and stabilize. Otherwise you will find that your cake collapses!

Very important: You must do the sugar on the ramekin walls or else the angel food cake will not rise. Traditionally , angel food cakes are baked in a tubular cake pan and no butter or flour is applied to the walls so that it can cling to the walls of the pan and rise.

Serve with Fresh fruits- Strawberries or Mango.

Recipe adapted from the Bakers Dozen Cookbook

20 comments:

Dhivya said...

wow!looks so so yummm

bha said...

Angel food cake seems so light....a perfect one for a summer evening

Dee said...

ms, thanks for the tips on baking... these are so useful for novice bakers like me .. the cake looks yumm!! wish I was closeby to your area so that I can taste one of your yumm cakes!!

Medhaa said...

this cake looks great and very good info. Thanks for sharing

Unknown said...

looks soft n delicious..

Deepa Kuber said...

Good recipe and nice tips.

Cham said...

Looks delicious the angel food cake.Thanks 4 the tips

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tips and the cake looks really light and yummy.

bee said...

single serve cake!!! what a brilliant idea. often i have one or two egg whites, not a dozen, so this recipe is perfect

Rupa said...

The cake looks so soft and spongy..must be tasting real yum...The picture is very inviting
Thanks for sharing

Unknown said...

thats a great post...perfect to make 2 servings! Thanks for sharing your tips with us :)

Unknown said...

Can you please recommend an alternative to cake flour? We don't get 'cake flour' here.

ms said...


Nandita: The standard substitute for cake flour is all purpose flour or maida. But because maida is denser, you need less of it. So 1 cup cake flour = 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons all purpose / maida flour. Im not sure you get extra large eggs in Mumbai as well - for a single serves you need a little less than 1/4rth a cup of egg whites.Hope this helps!

Dhivya, Bhags, Dee, Medhaa, Divya,anjali, cham, bee,rupa - Thank you very much for your encouragement! I really appreciate the time and effort you take in going through my blogs and commenting!

Unknown said...

MS, This is a fantastic cake recipe , single serve, Great!!!!!!!!.
I love ur way of explaining.I am really tempted to try soon.

The cakeworks blog is superb.I have added it in my favorite links

Stacie S-H said...

Does this recipe not need egg whites then? thanks!

MarissaIlyse said...

Fantastic idea however when I tried out the recipe I found the cakes to be a little dense and too salty. By whipping the egg whites to barely a soft peak and adding only a pinch of salt to the entire mix as opposed to an entire teaspoon the cakes came out a little more light and fluffy and tasted perfectly.

Jo said...

can you use sugar substitute ( Splenda) in place of the real sugar ?

MissPhotographerB said...

I can hardy wait to try this! Angel food cake is always my birthday treat choice. Is there a way to modify this for a chocolate angel food cake?

Rebecca A. Sands said...

I found a substitute online for when I've had to use cake flour before and it's 2 gbps corn starch in a one cup measure, and then fill the rest of the way with flour. Cake flour is starchier than regular flour to get the right consistency.

diane said...

Great idea....but PAM???!!!😊😊😊