Angel Food Cake

Over seven weeks in the kitchen, we baked more than 100 angel food cakes to discover, once and for all, what matters, what doesn’t, and how to achieve perfection. Here’s what we discovered:

Test Kitchen Discoveries

• The key to angel food cake lies in voluminous, stable egg whites. The merest speck of yolk precludes them from whipping to peaks.
• Use either cold or room-temperature egg whites. Cold whites will whip to the same volume as room-temperature eggs (they’ll just take a few minutes longer).
• Don’t panic if you slightly under- or overbeat the whites. We tried both, several times, and our cakes turned out respectably regardless.
• Even a drop of yolk can spell disaster, so take your time separating the eggs. Cream of tartar offers some insurance against deflated whites. It’s acidic, which helps stabilize egg whites.
• Angel food cake isn’t that difficult, but it is exacting. That’s why, while you almost never see a recipe in Cook’s Country that calls for odd measurements or weights, we call for both here.