I hope there's cake in Heaven

Last week's cake was angel food cake. I was obviously panicked. Angel food cake? Do you know how hard that is? Do you know how many eggs that is? It's 14. 14 EGGS! 14 eggs whites dumped into a bowl and brought to room temperature and beat into magic. I enlisted Maureen's help to prevent any nervous breakdowns.



It turns out that an angel food cake is actually entirely egg whites. A little sugar, a little flour, but seriously... mostly egg whites. I guess that means it's healthy? Lots of protein, low calorie, low fat... it's like a dieting cake lover's dream. Anyway... beating all those egg whites made a giant, fluffy "dough" which was really more like foam with a life of its own. Even my biggest mixing bowl was barely big enough to contain it. The pan also had some issues... I didn't have a tube pan, but a bundt pan is pretty similar, and I bought that bundt pan for that darn Tunnel of Fudge cake, so I was determined to put it to good use, and decided it would be close enough. Like the bowl, it barely held the batter, but we made it work. It was slightly terrifying to watch the cake slowly rise in the oven, threatening to spill over the sides and overtake the entire inside of the oven like The Blob or something, but the cake came out intact and the oven unscathed. Balancing the cake on a bottle to cool was a whole other adventure... and equally nerve wracking because at any minute Frye could jump on the counter, knock it over, and devour half of it. I had a fitful night of sleep, imagining noises signifying the destruction of our hard work, but thankfully the cake made it through the night.

It did not, however, make it out of the pan. The directions said to use an ungreased pan, and my bundt pan is super nonstick and super new, so I thought it wouldn't be a problem. But, as you can tell from the picture, it was. It would not come out of that pan. After much wriggling and prying with spoons, forks, knives, etc., I finally got the cake out, but it wasn't pretty. Usually, that's ok, because frosting hides all kinds of sins, but this cake was not meant to be frosted. Certainly it could be; Dr. Robinson mentions making a fudge frosting for hers since her guests at the time were chocolate lovers, and my grandma uses a cream cheese frosting on hers, but this cake was art, and I wanted it's true flavor and texture to be unobstructed. Sadly, this meant I had to present an ugly cake at lab meeting.

It actually didn't matter, though, because that cake was gone faster than anything I've ever brought in. I didn't even get a picture of the cut cake, and I was lucky to snag a couple pieces for Tim and Maureen as a thank you for their help with it. It got outstanding reviews, and for good reason. It was so soft and fluffy and light and just perfectly sweet enough... I want a bed made out of that cake. This was one troublesome cake that was worth it. If only I can figure out how to make it pretty next time...

I didn't read the chapter containing this recipe before I made the cake, but reading it now brings a little tear to my eye. Dr. Robinson made this cake the week of the anniversary of her mother's death, in honor of the horrendous angel food cake her mother once made for a student council luncheon. That cake was also ugly, and resulted in a mortifying cake debacle for the 3rd grade Dr. R. My cake is thus a fitting tribute: same cake, same disaster. I hope that angels really get to eat angel food cake, and that in heaven, all angel food cakes come out perfectly--golden, even, soft, pillowy, sweet and delicious. I hope Dr. R's mom is enjoying a perfect piece of angel food cake right now, smiling over the cake debacle and her daughter's efforts to honor her memory. And I definitely hope she saves a piece or two of that cake for us when we get there.