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 refrigerator. 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 similar 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.