How to Make Angel Food Cake

Learn how to make angel food cake with this simple step-by-step tutorial. Angel food cake is truly a very easy cake to make and turns out incredibly light, fluffy and moist. This is the best angel food cake recipe and will walk you through how to make it perfectly. 

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Angel Food Cake Overview

• Difficulty: Intermediate 
• Skills Used: Making a Simple Meringue (French Meringue)

Angel food cake is by far one of my favorite cakes if it is made well. A well made angel food cake is the most light and tender cake around. And bonus, it is naturally really low in fat!

If you aren’t familiar with the makeup of angel food cake, it by definition has no added fat. No egg yolks, no butter, no oil. The sugar in the cake has a huge responsibility for how moist, tender, and fluffy this cake turns out! (Read more about sugar’s role in baking.) 

I love how incredibly easy an angel food cake is to make. Essentially, you just make a simple egg white foam, using the same technique as french meringue, and fold flour into it and bake! The egg white foam in this cake is what makes the cake rise.

There is no baking powder or baking soda in this cake. The meringue and shape of the pan do all the work! This also means this cake calls for very few ingredients and is ready to go in the pan and bake very quickly.

 

How to Make an Easy Angel Food Cake

Step 1- Measure out all of your ingredients. 

This recipe calls for very few ingredients and it comes together very quickly. Make sure you have all of your ingredients measured and ready to go before starting to mix.

Because this cake is extremely light and tender it does call for the use of cake flour, which has a very low protein content. All-purpose flour can be substituted, but the cake will not be quite as light. Because cake flour is so light, you want to make really sure that you measure correctly if you are measuring by volume, however weight measurement is always preferred!

Step 2- Separate the Egg Whites

Egg whites whip up quicker and are more stable when they are at room temperature. I typically pull the eggs out about 30 minutes before separating them.

Take extra care not the get any egg yolk into the egg whites or they will not whip up to stiff peaks. 

Note: I have also used packaged liquid egg whites to make this foam and they also worked, however because they are pasteurized, I had to beat for much much longer.

Step 3- Combine your flour with other dry ingredients

Whisk together your cake flour with half of your sugar, and kosher salt. You don’t need to be completely exact with dividing your sugar in half, but about half of it is going to go into the meringue and half will go in with the flour.

Step 4- Begin by whipping the egg whites and cream of tartar (or lemon juice)

Make sure that the bowl you are using is clean and free from oil and place just the egg whites in the bowl. Whip for about 30 seconds and then add either your lemon juice or cream of tartar to stabilize the egg whites.

You can find cream of tartar easily in the spice aisle of the grocery store. IF you don’t have/don’t want to get cream of tartar, you can make angel food cake without it. Just swap it out for lemon juice or white vinegar. I add lemon zest to this cake anyway so the lemon juice will just give it a little more lemon flavor which is fine by me! 

Step 5- Slowly add in half of the sugar

Once your whites have reached soft peaks, continue mixing on low speed while slowly adding in the other half of the sugar, about 1 tablespoon at a time.

Step 6- Beat to stiff peaks

Watch the egg whites carefully and stop beating once you reach stiff peaks. The whites will look glossy and the whites should stand up straight with just a slight bend on the end. If you take the whites too far the gloss will go away and they will start to break down, look dry, and begin separating. If you go this far you need to stop and start over! Add the optional lemon zest once the meringue is at medium to stiff peaks.

Step 7- Gently fold the flour/sugar mixture into the foam. 

Lightly sprinkle, or sift,  the flour/sugar mixture over top of the foam/meringue and gently fold it together. Until no visible dry patches are left. 

The proper method for folding is this- Starting on the top, cut down from the center of the mixture to the bottom of the bowl with the spatula, then draw the spatula up toward you, bringing them mixture from the bottom to the top. Turn the bowl 90 degrees and continue doing this. 

Step 8- Pan and bake. 

For the absolute best results for this cake, you want to use an ungreased Tube Cake Pan. A tube pan is a round pan with a removable bottom and a straight tube up the center. It is not the same as a bundt pan.

Because there is no baking soda or baking powder in this recipe, the cake climbs along the walls of the pan to get its rise and light and airy texture. This is why it is also important not to grease the pan because the cake will not be able to grip the sides as well. I have used both non-stick and regular tube pans with equal results as to how well the cake rises.

For notes on baking angel food cake as cupcakes or in other cake pans see the written recipe. 

Step 9- Cool upside down. 

Once the cake is finished baking, you want to let it cool in the pan upside down. Hold onto the tube part of the pan and gently invert it and set it somewhere stable while it cools. This ensures that the cake will not fall while cooling.

Most commonly, angel food cake is served with fresh fruit and lightly sweetened whipped cream. I actually love it completely naked. It is so tender and not dry in the slightest.

For this cake, I decided to make a fresh strawberry sauce for serving and it was really delicious. Use my fresh berry sauce recipe to use with your favorite berry!