The origins of angel food cake, and the omission of yolks are the subject of popular lore. According to such lore, it is said that frugal Pennsylvania Dutch cooks created angel food cake in an effort to avoid wasting egg whites left over from making noodles.
Early Sponge cakes originated in Europe in the 1600s, but it was not until 1839 with the publication of
Lettice Bryan's
The Kentucky Housewife that an American version emerged. Unlike its European counterpart, Bryan's "White Sponge" lacked egg yolks, gaining a soft texture from a high sugar content, and maintaining its shape with the
citric acid of lemon and orange juice whisked through a meringue. White sponge gained popularity in the 1860s and 1870s after the 1864 publication of
The Practical Cook Book, which removed ingredients until only sugar, flour, and egg whites remained. On top of this basic recipe, cooks sometimes added flavor and stability with
almond extract and cream of tartar. According to the food historian Stephen Schmidt's writing in
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, the creation of these new cakes with greater volume and lighter consistency are where the modern angel food cake became distinct from the earlier white sponge. Sponges gained further popularity in this period after 1870 when the rotary egg beater was invented, reducing the effort and time involved in making sponge cakes. Sources differ on how cookbook authors had used "angel's food" as a descriptor to this point. Food writer
Stella Parks writes that it was used to characterize sweet dishes as having a wholesome quality, with the phrase derived from a use in the 16th century
Book of Common Prayer, referencing the biblical
manna. Schmidt writes that desserts labeled "angel food" were frozen
mousses made from egg whites and
whipped cream, along with other, similar dishes. The first use of "angels' food" to reference the cake identified by Parks came in
The Home Messenger, a cookbook published in 1878 in Detroit, Michigan. In 1884, a recipe was published by
Mary Johnson Bailey Lincoln in her
Boston Cook Book, after which the cake gained wide popularity. The appearance of angel food cake in cookbooks of the northern US represented an inversion of recipes for the white sponge, which had been the domain of southern cookbooks. The cake's appearance came in some of the last years of American cake cookery before the mass uptake of
baking powder.
20th and 21st centuries By the 1930s, through the work of researchers, preparation methods had changed. Egg whites were no longer whisked to stiff peaks after it was found that incorporating less air produced more tender and moist cakes, and instead of trying to whisk all of the sugar into egg whites, recipes changed to fold half of it in with the flour. Recipes appeared in cookbooks, including those targeting African-American audiences, and variants rolled out, the earliest being chocolate, prune, and maraschino cherry, later followed by cakes including peppermint, butterscotch, spices, and chocolate chips. Despite these developments, the mechanics of what was happening on a chemical and molecular level in preparation were not understood, and over the next few decades, scientists undertook research into the cakes. By 1962, the angel food cake had been so intently researched that cookbook illustrator
Marion Becker was compelled to assert that "laboratory research" had "become so elaborate as to intimidate the housewife." Other variants that came about in the 1930s included the daffodil cake, named for the streaks of yellow running through the classic angel food cake. Emerging in the
Great Depression, it offered cooks a way of using extra egg yolks. Layer cake versions of the angel food cake divided with whipped-cream gelatin fillings also arrived, made to be eaten at parties. In the following decade, the American food corporation
General Mills began to promote the chiffon cake, understood by consumers to be more accessible to those who struggled to make angel food cakes. Simultaneously, angel food party cakes evolved, moving the whipped cream to a hollowed out cavity and a coating for the exterior, and in the following decades, the interior filling was swapped for ice cream or a maraschino cherry-marshmallow-nut spread, sometimes extended with coconut and crushed, canned pineapple. By the turn of the 21st century, angel food cakes remained popular, in large part due to their low fat content. Filled, party versions continued to be made, which are often filled with strawberries and chocolate
Bavarian cream. == See also ==