Monday, August 3, 2009

Gobbledegook?

Well, that's what the name of this cake sounded like to me at least!! You see, I had been stockpiling egg whites in my freezer from when we were baking up an eggy storm at Christmastime, and I found myself with even more after the French vanilla cake I had made for the BBQ! All told, I had eight at my disposal, and even though they were frozen I didn't really want to keep them hanging around that much longer - they were eggs you know!

The dilemma was, however, that there was eight whites - far too many for macarons (unless I felt like baking a gazillion of them, that would then never be eaten *sigh*), but not quite enough for an angel food cake (mmm, angel food cake...). But I did want to make something with them... letting all that foresight and potential for a brilliant creation go to waste was not an option!

Thank God for the world of food blogging, and the Food Blog Search tool! It's saved my kitchen dilemmas a dozen times, I tell you! This time I came across Pille (from Nami-Nami)'s post for a most intriguing cake called Munavalgekook. Yeah... I tried to pronounce it too... the closest I came was "gobbledegook". Basically, this Estonian cake is the "fallen angel" of the sponge cake world - it starts off just like any angel food cake recipe, whipping the egg whites and sugar, folding in the flour, and then BAM! Lucifer kicks in with a hefty, deliciously rich dose of melted butter. Because you know, everything's better with butter, right?

Pille's recipe originally called for 6 egg whites, but seeing as I had 8 on hand I did a bit of math finangling. I also opted to stick with her weighed measurements - when baking (and especially when dealing with tricky things like egg whites), I prefer to dust off the scale and try for precision.

Munavalgekook (AKA: Fallen Angel Cake)
Serves 16
8 large egg whites
330 g sugar, divided
210 g flour
4 tsp glutinous rice flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon extract
130 g melted butter
  1. Preheat the oven to 350F, grease a tube pan.
  2. Beat the egg whites with 40 g sugar until stiff peaks form.
  3. Sift remaining sugar with flour, glutinous rice flour and baking powder.
  4. Fold into the beaten egg whites gently but quickly.
  5. Fold in the vanilla, lemon extract and melted butter, ensuring no streaks of flour remain.
  6. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until tests done.
  7. Cool 15 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 195.3
Total Fat: 6.8 g
Cholesterol: 17.5 mg
Sodium: 100.8 mg
Total Carbs: 30.9 g
Dietary Fiber: 0.3 g
Protein: 3.5 g

3 comments :

  1. I always mess up angel food cakes... so the fact that it's called "fallen angel food cake" sounds like it's a winner for me. Bookmarking this one for later!

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  2. Oh angel food cake with Butter! sounds heavenly to me

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