{"id":7804,"date":"2019-09-08T17:19:13","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T00:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/?p=7804"},"modified":"2019-09-08T22:19:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T05:19:31","slug":"angel-food-cake-with-meyer-lemon-curd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/angel-food-cake-with-meyer-lemon-curd\/","title":{"rendered":"Angel Food Cake Topped with Meyer Lemon Curd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone needs their own cake. Everyone. I have mine, do you have yours?<\/p>\n

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Okay, truth be told, my birthday cake is not fancy, I love a simple poppy seed cake dusted with powdered sugar. But my Mom had her special cake; a Chocolate Devil’s Food Cake with whipped cream frosting. My Step Dad had his favorite: a black walnut yellow cake with milk chocolate frosting. My husband likes a Pennsylvania Dutch vanilla cake with whipped cream frosting and loads of berries and Hettie Rose, my sweet little surprise, has her cake too (for now at least), an angel food cake topped with Meyer lemon curd and beautiful little frais de bois<\/em> for decoration.<\/p>\n

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frais de bois strawberries from our garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hettie Rose is truly my angel (hence the angel food cake and not the devil’s food cake!), not just because she is a super happy little baby but because I found out I was pregnant when I least expected another child just before my 45th birthday. She also made her debut a whole month early. However, she has no idea she is a premie and she has crushed all her developmental markers including averaging out in height and weigh. Her personality brings so much sunshine into our lives, hence the sunny Meyer Lemon curd topping. As soon as she wakes up, she is smiling \u2013 it’s just nuts! I’m like: who does that? Who wakes up and just instantly smiles? Hettie Rose, I guess, Hettie Rose…<\/p>\n

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Hettie Rose is constantly curious, always ready to giggle or crack one of her enormous smiles that literally engulf her little face in happiness, she is determined to swipe anything in sight and put it straight into her mouth, she enjoys grabbing her toes and she thinks hats, swings, sunglasses and mirrors (her reflection) are hilarious. She loves to eat\/drink: boob, banana, avocado and prunes \u2013 she is a little chunky milk monkey with big ol’ baby fat rolls that I absolutely adore! She is my angel, it is a miracle that she is here and she has truly completed this little family. Hettie Rose balances all of our personalities in a way I never could have imagined.<\/p>\n

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Okay, enough goo-goo gah-gah, so angel food cake, how to make it? Good question. Believe it or not, this is my first one! I know, I know \u2013 I totally nailed it! I thought it was easy as far as cakes go, so I’d like to demystify the process below. I have always been afraid to attempt angel food cake because my Mom told me when I was a kid that it was extremely difficult to make (probably because she just didn’t want me to eat it) so I just never thought to bother! See how parents damage their kids?!?!? Kidding, kidding…<\/p>\n

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For the Meyer lemon curd I used David Lebovitz’s recipe.<\/a> Meyer lemon curd is easy but time consuming. However, if you make it in a large batch you can keep it in the fridge for a few weeks and spread it on toast in the morning or use with other desserts \u2013 or just stick your tongue in the jar and devour while nobody’s watching! Not everyone has the time to make lemon curd and there are great store bought options these days that you can squeeze some Meyer lemon juice into in a pinch. <\/p>\n

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Layla carefully adjusting her cake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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My helper setting up Hettie Rose’s 3 Month birthday cake!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One thing you can’t mess up in an angel food cake is the egg separation process. A little egg yolk in the egg white mixture is going to ruin the meringue. I was hesitant to let Layla help out because, although her egg cracking game is pretty good, it’s not perfect. And she’s two years old. Which means she has selective hearing. Needless to say, she did a good job and she was careful. We cracked the eggs whole into a dish and then used our fingers to scoop out the yolks, letting the whites sift through our fingertips back into the bowl. This is also the way I do it in a professional kitchen when I’ve got trays and trays of eggs to separate. I do not sit around rocking the yolk back and forth between shells for 100 eggs. <\/p>\n

Pro Tips: separate eggs when they are cold. The yolk is less likely to break. Use fresh egg whites from fresh eggs for this recipe so the moisture content is high. Whip meringue when whites have warmed up from the refrigerator to about 65\u02daF. <\/p>\n

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Layla egg cracking! She’s two years old!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Watching egg whites whip into meringue is much more interesting than watching paint dry!
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When you finish whipping up your meringue, it should look like the picture below: glossy and almost stiff but not dry \u2013 pourable not<\/em> like little dry cloud clumps. The whites should be around 60-65\u02daF, just under room temperature in order to whip perfectly. And I would highly advise using the proverbial angel food cake pan. The meringue needs to cling and climb and this cake pan works best. A non-stick bundt pan is a no-go. Do not grease the pan either. <\/p>\n

The recipe can be divided into 4 quarters according to my old edition of the Joy of Cooking (don’t even bother with the new one when it comes to cake recipes, I use the 1975 JOY which still includes fascinating tips on how to set up a champagne tower and how to cook squirrel and I find the dessert recipes to be less about weight loss and cutting calories and more about technique). <\/p>\n

In the first quarter of the recipe, the egg whites are beaten gently until foamy. Then salt and cream of tartar is added midway which helps to stabilize the foam. In the second quarter the granulated sugar is added gradually on high speed until soft glossy peaks form \u2013 the granulated sugar helps to guard against over whipping. The third part consists of folding the meringue into the sifted dry ingredients quickly and lightly. with an over-under motion. And the fourth, pouring the mixture into the non-greased tube pan and baking on 350F\u02da.<\/p>\n

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egg whites glossy and stiff but not dry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I think most bakers today (like Flo Braker) would recommend using both granulated sugar AND powdered sugar unlike my old JOY recipe, so I’ve adjusted that below Granulated sugar should be used to whip into the meringue because using powdered sugar turns it into a gooey icing. And powdered sugar should be used with the dry ingredients \u2013 this keeps the structure light all around. <\/p>\n

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Flo Braker (my baking Goddess) says the golden crust should come off in the pan. Mine did not and I was okay with that. My old JOY recipe didn’t say anything about that either. So, I get a ding there on my first angel food cake but I though the taste and texture was perfect. <\/p>\n

The funniest thing about angel food cake is what you do when it’s done baking: you invert the pan onto a bottle. I used a wine bottle and let it hang out for about an hour and a half. This helps to set the cake. It makes it awfully hard to pour the wine though…<\/p>\n

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All in all, this was not a difficult cake to bake. But it sure was beautiful. And so light and fluffy. Layla sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Hettie Rose and blew out her candles and we all enjoyed a slice except Hettie of course, sigh, she’s just a baby after all, but she seemed content just to be part of her party. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone needs their own cake. Everyone. I have mine, do you have yours? Okay, truth be told, my birthday cake is not fancy, I love a simple poppy… Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1517,674],"tags":[1675,112,283,1676,741,1518,1680,1682],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_0429.jpg?fit=1620%2C1080","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2kn35-21S","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7804"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7906,"href":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804\/revisions\/7906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amyglaze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}