Heavenly Treats story and photography by RENEE KOHLMAN
Angel food cake is a timeless recipe, perfect for the holidays. It bridges generations of homecooks across Canada, and makes fantastic use of staple ingredients which everyone has on hand – eggs, sugar, flour, salt, and cream. I love that something so simple is so delicious. If you talk to your mom or grandmother, they surely have stories about angel food cake. My mom sure does. Growing up on a farm in 28
Saskatchewan meant there were plenty of eggs around. Her mother used the yolks for noodles and the whites were often turned into angel food cake. They had cows as well, so there was no shortage of whipped cream to be served with the cake. Eventually the cake-making duties fell to my mom, and to this day, nobody makes angel food cake quite like she does. Angel food cake is a delicate balance of meringue, cake and pastry flour, and a dry, sunny day. Why a sunny
day, you ask? Turns out that meringue is tricky to whip up on cloudy, rainy days, so it’s best to avoid making it when the humidity is high. The sugar in the delicate egg-white mixture readily absorbs moisture from the air, which makes it soft and impossible to achieve thick, stiff peaks. Angel food cake also has other rules, but don’t let that scare you. First off, you need a tube pan with a removable tube. Whatever you do, don’t grease it. The batter needs a dry pan to climb up as it bakes. If there’s any fat, the batter can’t climb and you’ll have