Angel Food Cake

So innocent!

Angel Food Cake is not very common in Ireland, I'd never even heard of it before I started baking, certainly never tasted it. But I had to do something with all those leftover egg whites from the Strawberry Tart, and so it seemed like an opportune moment to try it, the only other thing I could think of making was meringue and that wouldn't have been as much fun :)
I got the recipe from Cakes Galore, a really adorable book with some great ideas in it. I'll admit I'll probably never make most of the recipes in it, but I still love to look at it. I didn't modify the recipe but I did omit the icing, mainly because I didn't have that many egg whites to use.

It matches the board!

Recipe: Angel Food Cake

Ingredients:
50g plain flour
1 tablespoon cornflour
200g caster sugar
7 egg whites
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method :
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C/ 350 F. Grease and line a 23cm spring form tin with a tube base.
Sift the flour and cornflour in a bowl. Add 65g of the sugar and sift together twice.
In a separate large bowl, whisk the egg whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and salt and whisk until stiff.
Whisk in the remaining sugar until the mixture is stiff and glossy. Whisk in the vanilla extract.
Carefully fold in the flour mixture, then spoon the batter into the prepared tin and level surface. Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes, or until pale gold and spongy to the touch.
Transfer onto a wire rack and leave to cool in the tin.

I must say I was pleased with the results, it was very strange, but in a good way. My sister said it reminded her of sponge trifle and I see where she was coming from. I was a little anxious taking it out of the tin, there was so little flour in it I was sure I was going to end up with a giant meringue. I think perhaps I baked it for slightly too long as it didn't have a great height, I was under the impression that it's meant to be quite tall?
Anyway, I think it tasted great, a brilliant way of using up egg whites and certainly more interesting than meringue. Plus there is no fat in it, which is always a good thing when you don't feel like indulging too much.
I just ate mine plain, my mum had it with clementines and said it was delicious. I suspect you could have this cake with just about anything you like, chocolate sauce and ice-cream would be nice (though it wouldn't be quite so innocent anymore). I will defiantly be making this again, though I may experiment with different recipes. And if anyone can tell my how tall these cakes are meant to be I'd really appreciate it :)