Rose's Angel Food Cake

Eggs are one of my favorite ingredients to work with.  The possibilities are endless.  They can be salty, sweet, cheesy, creamy, etc.  I don't know how hard it is for a chicken to make one but I can't imagine that it is easy.  Because of this, I feel really bad to throw out a yolk or a white.  Whenever possible, I save the unused portion. Whites freeze beautifully.  I actually prefer to use whites that have been frozen because some of the water evaporates and you get a firmer, thicker white to beat into beautiful white fluffiness.  Yolks on the other hand do not freeze so beautifully.  They become gelatinous and firm.  I once tried to make a custard with frozen yolks and I got a curdle-y mess.  So, if you have extra yolks, you can store them in the fridge for a few days or... as my middle sister says "make some pudding from scratch because pudding is love."

I started this cake with 8 frozen whites that I had left over from another baking adventure.  I weighed them and found that I had 9 whites according to Rose's weight listed per white.  I then multiplied the recipe by 9.  *Good news: I can still multiply long hand!*  I decided to make this a vanilla bean angel food cake.  I had a few vanilla beans in my pantry but I recently bought a vanilla paste that I wanted to experiment with so I added it to the egg whites after I added the lemon juice, cream of tarter and sugar.  It worked well.  I then carefully folded in my dry ingredients.  No problems yet. 

Rose then suggests using an off-set spatula and coating the sides with the batter before filling the pan.  The idea is that you will ensure smooth sides.  I did this and I don't think I used enough care because my sides did not look smooth (see picture above).  I filled the pan and in the oven it went.  After 35 minutes, I pull out my cake and inverted it on a wine bottle.  I let if sit for 2 hours and unmolded it.  So far so good. 

Now what????  I am not a huge fan of plain angel food cake.  It is so plain and not creamy.  I usually enjoy mine in a trifle with sliced strawberries and vanilla pudding "lightened" with whipped cream.  Yum!!

So...I decided to slice the cake in 3 layers.  I then filled the 2 layers with raspberry sauce.  The problem was that I needed to add a little weight to this cake.  I opened the fridge and there it was: dark chocolate ganache.  I spread the ganache on the top of the cake.  Then I frosted the whole thing with chocolate whipped cream.  There you have it.  I managed to turn a fat free, light cake into a whopper!