I made an angel food cake using 12 egg whites from a carton of eggs, whose sell by date may have passed or was almost ready to pass. The eggs had set outside the fridge for about 24 hours so they were definitely room temperature.
I followed the instructions very carefully. I separated each egg in an empty cup to make sure not a speck of yolk got into the mixture. I whipped them with an electric hand mixer, but they never reached the stiff peaks I was expecting. They did sort of formed peaks but they were more like soft peaks. Finally I finished up the recipe exactly as written. I very carefully folded in the flour (which I had sifted with the sugar 5 times) by 1/4ths; making sure I didn't stir or break down the batter.
I baked it as directed and let it completely cool overnight. It tasted wonderful - no comparison to a boxed angel food cake which is all I had ever had prior to making this one. The thing that bothers me is it just didn't get really tall like the pictures. Now it wasn't flat like a cake or soufflé that just goes kaput. It just wouldn't make those stiff peaks!
What did I do wrong? Was it the eggs? Were they too old? I'm planning to make this angel food cake tomorrow. It is October 29 and the carton of eggs have a sell by date of Nov 8th.
By feekie from Tulsa, OK
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I have made a lot of Angel Food Cakes and have never had this problem.
When I'm planning to make this cake, I buy an extra dozen large eggs therefore, they are always fairly fresh. I break the eggs and separate the yolks from the whites while they are still cold. Just to make sure I don't get any yolk in the bowl of whites, I break each egg using a separate bowl.
I would certainly try it again. You can't beat made from scratch Angel Food Cake.
Also, when you take the Angel Food Cake out of the oven, turn it upside down to cool. To hold it up, I rest the edge of the pan on 3 coffee cups. As soon as it cools, it's ready to take out of the pan. Go around the edge of the cake with a long knife to loosen it from the pan. Then dump it on your cake plate.
I've experienced this when using a hand mixer. I'm wondering if maybe the hand mixer just doesn't have the power needed to whip up stiff peaks.
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