Sometimes a cookery course uses lots of egg yolks and I am left with all the egg whites.  I’ve been trying to come up with some interesting things to make them into other than just meringues.  Angel food cake is a pretty good solution – it uses about 10 egg whites whites at a time and the resulting cake is completely fat free, moist and sweet enough to eat without having to bother with icing.  I’m almost preferring it to ordinary cake.

When you make this cake, it’s important to cool the cake upside down in the cake tin, otherwise the cake will collapse.  There are special angel food cake tins on the market with collapsible legs for standing the tin upside down, or a funnel in the middle which you can place over the neck of a wine bottle.  I don’t have one of these, so I use and ordinary high sided cake tin and  I think the results are just as good.

Egg whites also freeze well.  I bag them up in 4’s and keep them in the freezer until I have time to use them up.

Chocolate Orange Angel Food Cake

Makes 1 x 8″ cake

Chocolate Orange Angel Food Cake

Chocolate Orange Angel Food Cake

300ml egg whites – about 10

300g caster sugar

60g plain flour

60g cocoa powder

rind of 1 large orange

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp salt

 

50g good quality chocolate

25g butter

1/2 tsp orange rind

  1. Set the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4.  Line a 20cm/8″ high sided square cake tin with non stick baking parchment, but do not use any oil.
  2. Sieve together the flour, cocoa powder and 100g of caster sugar.
  3. Set aside 1/2 tsp orange rind for the finishing drizzle.
  4. Put the egg whites into a large, clean bowl and whip for a few moments until frothy.  Add the cream of tartar, salt, orange rind and lemon juice.  Whip again until the egg whites are forming soft peaks.
  5. Add 1/2 of the remaining 200g of sugar and whip again.  Once the egg whites look glossy, add the remaining sugar and whip again until the egg whites are firm.
  6. Fold in 1/2 the four and cocoa mixture and once combined, fold in the second half.
  7. Pour into the cake tin and bake in the oven for 30 – 40 min, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
  8. Remove the cake from the oven and invert the tin onto a wire rack.  Leave to cool, then run a knife around the edges of the tin, turn the cake out and remove the non stick paper from the bottom.
  9. Melt the chocolate and butter and orange rind in a bowl over a pan of simmering water and drizzle over the cake to finish.