The Little Angel Food Cake that Could

Oh joy! Oh rapture!

If you think these words and exclamation points are excessive, then you have never watched an angel food cake collapse before your very eyes.

That cake was my worst failure so far (I'm not eliminating the possibility that something worse could happen in one of the next cakes), and part of me wanted to try it again. Another part--the noisier part--wanted to just admit that angel food cakes were not for me, and never to go in that direction again. And somehow the try-again part won out.

For one thing, trying again gave me the chance to buy another cake pan. I've been very virtuous lately, and have not bought a single NordicWare pan or anything at all unnecessary, so it seemed about time for me to buy an unnecessary junior-sized angel food cake pan. It was really a savings in the long run, I rationalized, because if the cake failed again, I wouldn't be wasting so many egg whites.

I didn't remember how easy this cake was to make. All I remember is the "splosh" it made when it collapsed. But it really is easy. Just beat some egg whites, and then beat then some more, adding sugar. Then whisk in a little Wondra flour. I didn't use chocolate this time, so I didn't have to grate that, but I did use a vanilla bean. Really, it couldn't get much simpler, assuming you have leftover egg whites in the freezer, which you're almost bound to have. (For example, next week's Bostini has 11 egg yolks to 6 egg whites, so you've already got enough for a five-cup angel food cake). And here is my 8-egg-white batter in my new cake pan. I'm glad I didn't try to fill it to the very top.

I remembered learning after Fiasco Cake that you shouldn't take the cake out of the oven until after it's risen above the pan and THEN fallen back down. So I didn't. And that's all there was to it. It worked like a charm. No matter how I stared at it, and even dared it to collapse on me, it just stoically stayed inside the pan. Good cake.

Of course, then I realized that I now had to remove the cake from the pan. I'm so accustomed to spraying all my cake pans with Baker's Joy that I couldn't see how unmolding this cake was going to work, especially since it was only a one-piece pan. I decided that if it stuck in the pan, it was a sign from above that I should never, ever make this cake again. Oddly enough, it didn't stick. It took a little persuasion, but the cake made it on the plate more or less intact.

After encouraging everyone to be creative, I decided I'd better come up with something a little fancier than the vanilla bean variation, so I made a passion fruit coulis. I had some frozen passion fruit concentrate left over from the White Gold Passion Fruit Genoise, and found a simple coulis recipe on the Perfect Puree website.

• 3/4 cup Culinary Traditions™ Passion Fruit Concentrate thawed
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• a vanilla bean, split

1. Combine puree and sugar in a heavy medium saucepan.

2. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean and add both to the saucepan.

3. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Simmer until mixture has reduced to 1/2 cup, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes.

4. Remove bean then transfer coulis to bowl and refrigerate until cold.

5. Drizzle coulis over cake just before serving.

Obviously, this is very simple to make, as long as you have the passion fruit concentrate. And it worked out handily that I'd used a vanilla bean for the cake and so still had the bean as well as some of the seeds left. A half-cup of sugar seemed like a lot, but I followed the directions anyway, and was glad I did.  The coulis was quite tart, but was a good foil for the sweet cake and whipped cream.

Here's my verdict: Why didn't anyone ever tell me that angel food cake could be so good? The stuff you buy from the store is tough, overly sweet, but otherwise tasteless. The only reason you'd want it for dessert is if you're desperate for something sweet and you figure a cake that tastes that bad must be pretty harmless.
But this cake....this is something else. It's delicious!
I'm ashamed to admit that Jim and I finished this cake off completely by ourselves over the course of three days. The first night, it was too late to invite anyone over and we each had two pieces (they were small!). I don't remember what our excuse was the second day. By the third day the whipped cream was pretty runny, so I didn't think it was good enough to serve to guests. Then Jim had some for lunch. I had some for breakfast. And it was gone.  So is my angel-food cake phobia.

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A note on caramel: After reading about our caramel issues with the caramelized pineapple pudding cake, Woody tried it again. He had issues too. Neither he nor Rose is sure why it worked for them previously, and doesn't now, but they're experimenting