Angel Food Cake

Ingredients

Angel food cake

• 1 1/4 cup cake flour
• 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup egg whites

Topping

• 1 pint heavy whipping cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 lb strawberries, cut into slices
• 1/4 cup orange liqueur

Method

1. In a large bowl, beat egg whites until still peaks.  Add cream of tartar, salt, and vanilla extract, mix well.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together cake flour and sugar.  Repeat this 5x.  Slowly add cake flour mixture to egg whites, a little at a time, gently fold with a spatula with each addition.  Pour cake batter into angel food cake pan (if you don’t have an angel food cake pan, you can use a makeshift one, see below!)
3. Place on the middle rack in a cool oven.  Turn oven on to 325°F.  Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.  Turn baked cake upside-down on a cooling rack.  Cool for about 1 hour before removing from pan.
4. In a large mixing bowl, whip the heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks.  Add vanilla extract and salt.  Whip until combined.
5. Slice the cake horizontally with a serrated knife into 1/3’s.  Put the base layer on your serving tray.  Using a pastry brush, dab orange liqueur sparingly over the top of the cake layer.  Top with 1/3 of the whipped cream, and layer with strawberries.  Repeat with the remaining layers.  If you have extra whipped cream, use it to pipe around the edges

Recipe notes

• If you don’t have an angel food cake pan, no worries!  I used this awesome tutorial from Epicurious and I fashioned a makeshift pan out of a springform.  Basically, you use an old soda can, fill it halfway with water and wrap it in parchment paper.  Then you line the bottom of your springform pan with parchment paper and cut a starburst slit in the middle so your soda can fits (the Epicurious site has illustrations).