After making a half-sheet yellow butter cake with lemon mousseline, I had an extra pint of egg whites on hand. (The cake required 16 yolks, the mousseline required 10 egg whites, and the lemon curd I mixed into the mousseline used 8 yolks.) I decided to return to one of my favorite angel food cake recipes, the "Espresso Chocolate Chip Angel Food Cake" from Emily Luchetti's Four-Star Desserts.
The recipe is straightforward. You beat egg whites until foamy; add cream of tartar; gradually add sugar and beat the whites until stiff; add vanilla and lemon juice; and incorporate the sifted dry ingredients (cake flour, instant espresso powder, and salt) and chocolate chips. The recipe says to coarsely chop the chocolate chips; I always use miniature chocolate chips to save time. You pour the batter into an ungreased tube pan and bake.
There are a few reasons I love this cake so much. First, the espresso powder and chocolate chips give the cake a lovely flavor that isn't too sweet, which is sometimes a problem with angel food cake. There are a lot of chocolate chips in the cake, and the only problem with the miniature chips was that quite a few became exposed and fell out of the cake when I sliced it. Second, this cake has the perfect texture for an angel food cake. It's light, soft, resilient, and bouncy, without any hint of stickiness.
I feel like I've been making this angel food cake forever (Four-Star Desserts was published in 1996), but apparently I don't make it often enough. My husband Tom -- whom I've known for almost eleven years -- had never tried this cake before and half-jokingly complained about missing out on it all this time. Because I try more than 100 new recipes every year, I only have so much time to return to old favorites. Thankfully, this recipe never disappoints -- no matter how long it's been since my last visit.
Recipe: "Espresso Chocolate Chip Angel Food Cake" from Four-Star Desserts by Emily Luchetti, recipe available here.
Previous Posts:
The recipe is straightforward. You beat egg whites until foamy; add cream of tartar; gradually add sugar and beat the whites until stiff; add vanilla and lemon juice; and incorporate the sifted dry ingredients (cake flour, instant espresso powder, and salt) and chocolate chips. The recipe says to coarsely chop the chocolate chips; I always use miniature chocolate chips to save time. You pour the batter into an ungreased tube pan and bake.
I feel like I've been making this angel food cake forever (Four-Star Desserts was published in 1996), but apparently I don't make it often enough. My husband Tom -- whom I've known for almost eleven years -- had never tried this cake before and half-jokingly complained about missing out on it all this time. Because I try more than 100 new recipes every year, I only have so much time to return to old favorites. Thankfully, this recipe never disappoints -- no matter how long it's been since my last visit.
Recipe: "Espresso Chocolate Chip Angel Food Cake" from Four-Star Desserts by Emily Luchetti, recipe available here.
Previous Posts:
- "Who Knew?: Vanilla Bean Angel Food Cake with Milk Chocolate Glaze," June 7, 2016.
- "Light and Lovely: Chocolate Lover's Angel Food Cake," February 10, 2016.
- "Baked Sunday Mornings: Lime Angel Food Cake with Lime Glaze," February 16, 2014.
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