Page 284 - Chocolate Cake Doctor

C h o c o l a t e

A n g e l F o o d

a n d C h i f f o n C a k e s

• • •

hen you take egg yolks end of 2000 the Dallas Morning News

and fat out of a cake surveyed sixteen cookbook authors and
recipe, you remove a lot of food experts to determine the top cakes of
flavor. So what is the the last century. Angel food was men-
allure of angel food cakes? They seem to tioned more than any other cake.
be just sugar and hot air, as their high egg Chocolate angel food? Now this is a
white ratio drives them upward slightly different creature. And
in the pan. Yet a lot of folks constructing one used to

out there are big fans. mys tify me until I discov-
In fact, my mother and ered Dutch-process cocoa
grandmother would choose powder. Its deep color and
angel food before any other cake. rich flavor are just the ingredients
They say the key is the cake’s delicacy, its to turn an angel food mix into a chocolate
ability to satisfy and yet not fill us up, angel. Add the flavoring of your choice—
and its spongy texture that sops up juicy apricot, orange, peppermint, coffee—and
peaches and berries. And they’re right— you have a mighty interesting cake.
it’s for those reasons that angel food is a But go carefully. The angel food mix

beloved American classic. In fact, at the is resilient enough to withstand tem pera -