I can hear them singing now...

I was inspired by a book I read to attempt angel food cake from scratch. Angel food is a family tradition for us. I grew up eating it fairly regularly. But for some reason it never occurred to me to think outside the box, literally. My curmudgeon of an aunt told me "It will never turn out as fluffy as Duncan Hines." That turned it into a mission to prove her wrong more than make a beautiful cake. 

I turned to my trusted food guru, Alton Brown, for a recipe.  You can find it here. It calls for a dozen egg whites and unexpected things like putting the sugar in the food processor. I initially thought that step would be a bit silly. It's sugar, like the food processor can make it any smaller. To my surprise, it did! Not quite powdered sugar, but definitely super fine. The recipe is fairly straight forward and easy. Alton recommends starting with a wisk and moving to a hand mixer. I used the Kitchen Aid the whole time and it came out fine.

You basically make a meringue and fold flour and sugar into it. Something magical happens along the way that gives the batter the most beautiful iridescent sheen. The photo doesn't do it justice. As beautiful as it is, angel food batter is not one I'm tempted to lick off the beaters. It has a tangy, sort of metallic taste to it. But put it in the oven and it turns into fluffy golden goodness.

The part I like the most about angel food cake, other than the eating of course, is that when you take it out of the oven you turn the pan upside down and balance it on a glass to cool. Love it! That way it doesn't deflate on you. Traditionally my family tops angel food cake with whipped cream. I opted for a strawberry glaze. It was really yummy, especially in the middle of winter. For as much poo-pooing as I got and warnings about it not cooking through and falling out of the pan, it turned out beautifully. It had the best texture and was brilliantly fluffy! So don't let other people scare you. Baking is never is as terrible as people make it out to be.

Forgive the quality of these pictures; they're from my phone. I need to get my camera back in action and I'll take more photos of the process.