Experimental cookery

egg white mixture, and the grain is coarser. Spots of flour may occasionally be found. These are more likely to occur when the sugar has not been sufficiently mixed, or when all the flour is sifted over the cake at one time, or if too thick a layer is used, which increases the difficulty of incorporating the flour, as it tends to pile and roll up in balls. Longer mixing of the flour with sugar and egg white tends to produce a fine grain and small cells. See Fig. 39, cakes 2 and 3. The longer mixing of flour also has a tendency to toughen the cake, which may be due to development of the gluten of the flour and to the thicker cell walls caused by combining several cells through loss of air by mixing. An amount of mixing of the flour just to blend it well with the egg white and sugar usually produces the best results. Texture. The texture and grain, also the volume and tenderness, of angel cake are influenced by several factors: (1) The mechanical treat- ment, which includes the kind of beater used, the degree of whipping of the whites, the method of and extent of mixing the ingredients; and (2) the ingredients used, their amount and kind. The factor determining the size of the cells to the greatest degree is the type of beater used and the extent to which the egg white is beaten, which has been considered. Longer whipping produces more and smaller air bubbles so that the cells are smaller, the grain finer. Rotary and electric beaters, in general, give finer grain than whisks. Beating the egg whites to obtain the possible maximum cake volume usually produces the most tender cake, for with a maximum volume the cell walls are stretched to the greatest extent, hence are thinnest. The method of folding or mixing also afFects the grain of the cake. After egg whites are whipped, the folding and mixing should be done gently and to retain as many of the air bubbles as possible. Longer mixing of the sugar with the egg whites tends to give a finer grain (see Fig. 37), but not to the extent that the folding of the flour does. Thus the grain or texture of the cake may vary to a certain extent, but a cake with thin cell walls and medium-sized cells that is so tender that it "melts in your mouth" is preferable to one that has a fine grain but is less tender. Ingredients used in angel cake. Flour. The amount of flour per gram of egg white may vary from 0.2 to 0.4 gram. The smaller amount tends to give a more moist and tender cake, the larger a more dry and less tender one. Cake flour produces a more tender cake than bread flour. It contains gluten that is not so tenacious, and therefore yields a cake that is more tender and of greater volume. The cakes made of bread flour shrink and pull away from the pan as they finish baking and while cooling. See Fig. 38, which is a reproduction of the manipulation and proportions for the cakes in Fig. 37. It is possible to obtain a fair cake from bread flour, but it is not as tender as with cake flour. Better results are obtained with bread flour if the sugar is increased by about 2 to 4 tablespoons or the INGREDIENTS USED IN ANGEL CAKE 371 Fig. 41. — Angel cake. Showing effect of increasing the sugar from 1% to VA cups. Typical sugary crust. Experiment (69, F). As shown in the illustration the cakes are about five-sixths actual size.