Tag Archives: Angel Food Cake

Toasted Sugar or Not!

BY HELEN S. FLETCHER, ON
COPYRIGHT, HELEN S. FLETCHER, 2020. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
ALL PHOTOS BY PASTRIES LIKE A PRO UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

Items made with Toasted SugarI was recently toodling around the internet and came across a recipe for Toasted Sugar on Serious Eats by Stella Parker.

For all the chemistry involved please go to the article. I just wanted to know if it actually worked and what it tasted like.

I didn’t own a glass baking dish, so off to Walmart I went to get one. Easy enough. While there I picked up a four pound package of granulated sugar as called for.

A glass or ceramic baking dish is called for because they are poor conductors of heat and allow the sugar to darken without melting.

Here how it went. Continue reading →

Toasted Angel Food Cake, Roasted Strawberries and Balsamic Whipped Cream

BY HELEN S. FLETCHER, ON
COPYRIGHT, HELEN S. FLETCHER, 2020. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
ALL PHOTOS BY PASTRIES LIKE A PRO UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

Toasted Angel Food Cake with Roasted StrawberriesEvery once in a while, a recipe comes together and surpasses every expectation – Toasted Angel Food Cake, Roasted Strawberries and Balsamic Whipped Cream is that recipe.  Now I am the first to admit it is a different take on every component in the dessert.  But let’s take a look at those components.

What if I told you an Angel Food Cake can be made without the dreaded folding in of flour and sugar which can deflate the whites making a denser, less airy cake.  I love Angel Food Cake for its light, moist,melt in your mouth texture. It is snow white and has an ethereal quality to it, hence the name.  

The recipe I am giving you here is from my bakery.  It is the tallest, lightest, best angel food cake I have ever had.  I wish I could take credit for it but I can’t.  It came in a General Mills baking flyer they sent to bakeries many years ago. Continue reading →

A Trio of Angel Food Cakes with a Foolproof Recipe

BY HELEN S. FLETCHER, ON
COPYRIGHT, HELEN S. FLETCHER, 2020. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
ALL PHOTOS BY PASTRIES LIKE A PRO UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

trio-of-angel-food-cakes.jpegI’m not sure what’s in the air, but the beloved Angel Food Cake is turning up everywhere.  So I decided to do some research and see where the differences were.  I looked at blogs, the internet and yes, real books!  Here is the list I checked out:  davidlebovitz.com,  americastestkitchen.com,  joythebaker.com,(based on Alton Brown’s recipe),  zoebakes.com, baking bites.com,(from thebestrecipe.com)  foodnetwork.com, Alton Brown, “Bakewise”, author Shirley Cohrrier, “Professional Pastry Chef”, Bo Friberg, original “Joy of Cooking”  and General Mills professional recipes. All the ingredients were the same more or less except one.  Here is what I found.

Sifted cake flour was recommended by all ranging from 1 to 1 1/2 cups.

Sugar was almost always processed to make it finer.  We used a special fine sugar in the bakery known as bakers sugar.  Using a food processor to process the sugar accomplishes this.  Amounts ran from  1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups on average. Continue reading →