Chocolate Angel Food Heaven

So fluffy, moist and sweet. Angel food cake has always been one of my favorites, yet somehow it is also one of the few cakes I had never made before. This summer I inherited an angel food tube cake pan from my Grandmother Signe's incredible kitchen. Until I decided to bake this cake on Monday, I really didn't even know what went into it. I was surprised to find a fairly short list of ingredients on all of the recipes that I looked at.

After some minor research, I landed on a chocolate angel food cake recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Fake Ginger. I followed her version of the recipe, and actually cut out even one more of the sifting phases. Sifting the dry ingredients just the one time. The hardest part of this cake is being patient as you whip your egg whites. I consider myself a decently experienced baker, but after 5 or so minutes I was sure I had done something wrong. Quite the contrary - at that quantity of eggs it is just going to take a long time for them to get to the stiff consistency that you are looking for.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup cake flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa (I used Hershey's special dark)
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 11 egg whites
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (I didn't have this - so I left it out)
• 1 cup sugar (I used Equal Spoonful to make it a bit more diabetic friendly)

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 375 and get your angel food tube cake pan out; do not grease.
• Sift cake flour, cocoa, and powdered sugar together. Set aside. (This is where the recipe calls for a "tripple sift, but I just did one go through the sifter)
• In a large bowl, combine your egg whites, cream of tartar, salt, vanilla, and almond extract. Beat until foamy. Gradually add sugar beating until meringue holds stiff peaks. This will take quite a long time - so long I almost thought I had done something wrong... so just be patient. It goes something like this ...

The starting gate ... your mixture is runny, yellow and foamy.

A few minutes in ... still foamy but the color starts to soften and the liquid thickens as it grows.

A few more minutes in ... the mixture starts to change to a glossy white as the foam disappears (you will be in this stage for what feels like forever).

About ten minutes in ... the color is a glossy white, all of the bubbles are gone and you start to feel the slightest resistance on your spatula as you scrape the sides.

DONE! You made it. You will know you can stop beating when the white mixture will hold a stiff peak.

• Slowly add the flour-sugar mixture to the meringue and gently fold it in until you don't see any of the dry ingredients.
• Place batter into tube pan. Smooth it out so it is even and if necessary gently cut through batter with a knife to break up any air pockets. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.
• Invert pan on a baking rack until fully cool.
• Sprinkle with some powdered sugar and enjoy!