Gluten Free Angel Food Cake with 50% Less Sugar

This Gluten Free Angel Food Cake Recipe was developed to celebrate this little blog’s first anniversary. The cake is light, fluffy, and just sweet enough – a great base for a whipped topping and lots of fresh berries!

Yes, Cathy’s Gluten Free is one year old! Last November, I launched with Simple Crusty Artisanal Bread,  Pumpkin Spice Muffins, Granola, and Lavender Biscotti. I really must reshoot some of those photos!

The blog has turned out to be a great creative outlet and a way to share my delicious gluten free recipes with you. I know that many people, as I was, are searching for gluten free recipes that are simple to make, taste great, and are nutritious. Often, by the time we realize we need to eat gluten free, we have developed conditions that require us to rebuild our health.

While it may be tempting to indulge in excessively sweet treats to compensate for the gluten-containing foods we can’t eat, I wouldn’t recommend that practice. By learning to use good-quality ingredients in the right way, we can prepare great-tasting foods that are likely even better than the ones you used to eat before going gluten free!

If you aren’t getting my weekly newsletter with the latest recipes and a little about what’s going on in my life, sign up now.

The year has passed quickly. I feel that I’ve hardly made a dent in the number of recipes that I want to share with you! We’ve also been busy with a big, downsizing move that has occupied much of our time over the past several months.

What Gluten Free Foods Would You Like to Make?

As we enter Year Two of Cathy’s Gluten Free, I hope to focus on improved photos and video instructions to help you make the recipes. I welcome your feedback regarding the content on the blog. Let me know how you like to eat and what you would like to make. What kind of recipes would you like to see more of on this website?

Gluten Free Angel Food Cake Recipe

Now, let’s get back to this lovely angel food cake recipe. Predominantly egg whites, angel food cake is generally high in protein. However, it is also usually very high in sugar!

Gluten Free Cake

I chose angel food as the cake to make for this first anniversary because it’s a cake that doesn’t rely heavily on a flour base. Changing the usual wheat flour to a blend of three gluten free flours has little effect on texture or taste. I used an equal amount of each flour for quick and easy measuring.

Low Sugar Cake

Cutting back the sugar content by 50% and replacing the usual powdered sugar with unrefined, organic raw sugar received unanimous consent from my testers.

Easy Angel Food Cake

Whenever I develop a new recipe, I like to start with the simplest possible technique. From there, I add preparation steps only as necessary. For the first trial baking of this angel food cake recipe, I completely omitted the usual sifting of flours and then tried adding that flour mixture to the egg whites all at once. While the resulting product tasted good, it had a very course texture.

For the more refined cake shown here, I used my food processor to combine the flours, sugar, and salt to remove any lumps. I found that this dry mixture blended better into the beaten egg whites if I first gently stirred about one-third of the beaten egg whites into the flour mixture until everything was totally incorporated. Then, it was easier to gently fold that combination into the remaining egg whites without beating them down too much.

If you don’t have a food processor, you could sift your flours salt through a sieve. Then stir in your half-cup of sugar completely with a wire whisk.

How to Keep Volume in an Angel Food Cake

Slowly adding about one-third of your sugar into the egg whites while you beat them works well and reduces the amount that needs to be stirred in with the dry ingredients.

Pan for Angel Food Cake

I used a simple tube pan for my angel food cake. If you have one with a removable bottom, that would be great. Don’t grease your pan. The batter needs to cling to the sides to climb up tall. It can, however, be very difficult to clean cooked egg out of a pan. I recommend lining just the bottom with parchment paper. Not only is that part of the pan then easier to clean, but also your cake will come out easier.

How to Beat Egg Whites

Read the recipe through to the end before proceeding. You will need to let your egg whites sit for half an hour to come up to room temperature for greater volume when beating. Separate them while they’re cold and save the yolks for another purpose.

It’s very important that you not get any yolk into your egg whites. Be sure to follow those instructions closely.

Gluten Free Angel Food Cake

By following these simple steps, you should obtain a cake that is a little rustic in nature. It’s not as pure white and refined as a more processed cake. Still, this gluten free angel food cake recipe produces a golden dessert that is light, fluffy, and just sweet enough – a great base for a whipped topping and lots of fresh berries!

Gluten Free Angel Food Cake

Yield: 8

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Additional Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 25 minutes

CathysGlutenFree.com

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Ingredients

• 12 egg whites
• 1/3 cup sorghum flour
• 1/3 cup white rice flour
• 1/3 cup arrowroot flour
• 3/4 cup organic raw sugar, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• whipped cream, whipped coconut cream for dairy free
• fresh berries of choice

Instructions

1. Separate the eggs. It's very important that you do not get any yolk into your egg whites. Separate them one at a time putting the whites into a small dish individually and reserving the yolks for another use. As each white comes out without any yolk, add it to a large mixing bowl. If you get any yolk in with the egg white, don't use that one for this recipe. Use another egg and a clean small dish. Let egg whites sit half an hour to come to room temperature.
2. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350. Line the bottom only of a 9-inch tube pan with parchment paper. 
3. Combine flours, 1/2 cup sugar, and salt in food processor. 
4. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form, adding cream of tartar and vanilla during the process. Also, slowly add 1/4-cup raw sugar as the egg whites come close to being stiffly beaten.
5. Gently stir about 1/3 of the beaten egg-white mixture into the flour mixture until the dry ingredients are all incorporated.
6. Then, very gently fold this new wet/dry mixture into the stiff egg whites. The goal is to have the two well-combined without beating the air pockets out of the egg whites.
7. Add the batter to an ungreased tube pan. Gently smooth it out just a little without pressing it down.
8. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes. Invert to cool in such a way as to allow air flow all around it. Simply leaving the pan upside down on a cooling rack works well if the cake has not risen above the top of the pan. If it has, you might try to balance the centre tube on an unopened can. Allow the cake to cool completely before sliding a knife around the edges and removing it from the pan.
9. Serve with whipped cream (coconut or dairy) and fresh berries.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 8
Amount Per Serving:Calories: 165

This data was provided and calculated by Nutritionix.