Orange Angel Food Cake with Orange Glaze

Orange Angel Food Cake is a light, fluffy, fat-free, melt-in-your mouth cake with a citrus twist. Perfect if you are looking for a lighter dessert, it’s delicious served with whipped cream, ice cream or sorbet.

Until I made this cake for the first time way back in 2012, I had not eaten Angel Food Cake for years. I always enjoyed it when I lived in Canada, but it really isn’t well known or popular in England where I live now. I love to bake cakes, but I felt very intimidated about making Angel Food Cake because I had heard it was not an easy cake to bake and that the pan you used was critical.

Finally, after over fifteen years without a bite of one of my favourite cakes, I got fed up with waiting and made my first Angel Food Cake in 2012.

Tips for Making Angel Food Cake

Having made the recipe several times since, here are my top tips.

What cake tin to use – it’s important to use a tube pan without a non-stick feature – so I invested in a proper Wilton Angel Food Tube pan (affiliate link). It was a good investment because I still use today, 14 years later!

Room Temperature Egg Whites – Be sure your egg whites are at room temperature so they whip better.

You Can Use Egg White From A Carton – I was also concerned about the time and effort involved in separating 10 to 12 eggs – and what was I going to do with all the yolks? Luckily, around that time Two Chicks Egg Whites – liquid egg whites in cartons – came on the market. (This is not a sponsored link, this is just a product I know, love and am happy to recommend.) If you want to use fresh egg white, please do, but good quality egg whites in a a carton have always worked brilliantly and I almost always use them.

Sifting the flour multiple times is important – It may sound like sifting the flour all those times is a lot of trouble, and most flour comes pre-sifted these days, but it really is worth it because it makes the cake lighter. Also I find the sifting process quite therapeutic.

Flavouring – I use orange blossom water for a more delicate flavour than orange extract but both work. See below for variations.

Recipe History

For the recipe, I turned to an old faithful and slightly adapted the Orange Angel Food Cake recipe in The Anne of Green Gables Cookbook (affiliate link). Written by L M Montgomery’s granddaughter Kate Macdonald, the book contains recipes for many of the dishes the wonderful orphan from PEI made famous – including ‘Anne’s Liniment Cake’. Oh, how I love the Anne of Green Gables books by L M Montgomery!

Variations

I have tried various different variations on the original recipe through the years.

• Substitute lemon flavouring for orange blossom water, and use lemon juice and rind for the glaze
• Substitute vanilla flavouring for the orange blossom water and serve the cake with a plain glaze
• Substitute almond flavouring for the orange blossom water and serve the cake with a plain glaze sprinkled with a few toasted flaked almonds.

Orange Angel Food Cake Recipe

Slightly adapted from the Anne of Green Gables Cookbook by Kate Macdonald

1 cup Italian ’00’ flour – You can use all-purpose flour but I prefer the finer flour
½ cup icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cups room temperature egg whites (about 10 or 11 eggs)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon Orange Blossom Water or orange extract
1 tablespoon finely grated orange peel
1½ teaspoons cream of tartar
1 cup granulated sugar (I used caster – or superfine – sugar)

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Be sure the oven racks are arranged so that the cake can sit near the bottom of the oven as it does rise.

Sift the flour onto a piece of wax or greaseproof paper or into a bowl. Measure out one cup and put it back into the sifter. Add the icing sugar and salt. Sift back into the bowl again. Now sift everything four more times.

Separate the eggs and put the egg whites in a large mixing bowl (or measure out the required amount of egg whites).

Add the vanilla, orange extract and orange peel.

Beat the egg whites until foamy using an electric mixer or hand mixer.

Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until the egg whites are firm, but still glossy.

Gradually add the granulated sugar to the egg whites, about two tablespoons at a time. Continue beating until the egg whites cling to the sides of the bowl and are stiff, but not dry.

Fold in the sifted flour and icing sugar gradually using a spatula. Bevery gentle so as not to take any of the air out of the egg whites. So not stir.

Spoon the batter into an ungreased angel food cake pan or tube pan. Cut through the batter with a kitchen knife to release any large air bubbles. Smooth the top very gently with the knife.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes.

The cake is done if the top springs back when touched lightly. (Do not insert a skewer in the cake as I normally recommend.) If your finger leaves a dent, quickly shut the oven door and leave the cake for another 5 minutes. Test again, and if the cake is still not done, repeat the process until it is.

When the cake is done, use oven mitts to remove it from the oven.

Turn the cake upside-down on a cooling rack and leave it for about an hour to cool.

Turn the cake right side up in the pan, and carefully run the blade of a metal spatula or palette knife around the sides and centre of the cake to loosen it.

Turn the cake upside down on a cake rack and gently lift off the pan.

Let the cake cool completely and then, if desired, glaze it with Orange Glaze.

Orange Glaze

1¼ cups icing sugar
½ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 teaspoon Orange Blossom Water or orange extract
grated peel of one orange, or you can peel thin strips of the peel from the orange

Strain the orange juice through a strainer to remove the pith.

Mix the icing sugar and the orange juice in a small bowl.

Add the orange blossom water or orange extract and mix in until you have a smooth glaze.

Spoon the glaze on top of the angel cake. Spread it out to the edges with a metal spatula and let it dribble down the sides.

Garnish with the orange peel.

Serving Orange Angel Food Cake

Cutting Angel Food Cake can be a bit tricky. The easiest method is to use an Angel Food Cake cutter and “break” the cake by inserting the cutter and gently moving it back and forth. However if you don’t have one, there are other options.

If you do not have an Angel Food Cake cutter, you can carefully cut the cake with a long, serrated bread knife (do not press into the cake, just kind of ‘saw’ back and forth. Failing that, you can try to insert two forks back to back and gently tear the cake apart – but I have never had much luck with this method!

You can see an old-fashioned Angel Food Cake cutter below. This is my vintage Schneider cake breaker, circa 1930, which belonged to my Mom and my Grandma before her. It is my favourite cake slicer ever, and works on any kind of cake.

Storing Orange Angel Food Cake

Orange Angel Food Cake will keep in a sealed container at room temperature for about 2 days, or you can keep it in the fridge for up to a week.

Please note, if you fill your Orange Angel Food Cake or use a buttercream icing, you will need to refrigerate it from the start.

To freeze Orange Angel Food Cake, wrap first in cling film (plastic wrap) and then aluminium foil and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the fridge and serve at room temperature.

Serving Suggestions

Orange Angel Food Cake is delicious served on its own or garnished with strawberries or raspberries. It’s also delicious with whipped cream, a scoop of ice cream or orange sorbet.