Angel Food Cake

We had quite a few eggwhites left over from all the homemade custards we were making. What to do with the eggwhites? Le hubby answered that with angel food cake! He found Alton Brown's recipe and away [to the kitchen] I went.

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cake flour
12 egg whites (the closer to room temperature the better)
1/3 cup warm water
1 teaspoon orange extract, or extract of your choice
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a food processor spin sugar about 2 minutes until it is superfine. I skipped this part. Sift half of the sugar with the salt and the cake flour, setting the remaining sugar aside.

In a large bowl (I used my stand mixer's bowl), use a balloon whisk to thoroughly combine egg whites, water, orange extract, and cream of tartar. 

After 2 minutes, switch to a hand mixer. Slowly sift the reserved sugar, beating continuously at medium speed. 

What I assumed "medium peaks" to be. FYI: The dripping stayed up, it didn't fall off the whisk.

Once you have achieved medium peaks, sift enough of the flour mixture in to dust the top of the foam. Using a spatula fold in gently. Continue until all of the flour mixture is incorporated. As you can see, my flour/sugar mix was not sifted...

Carefully spoon mixture into an ungreased tube pan. I just poured/dumped the batter into my pan.

Bake for 35 minutes before checking for doneness with a wooden skewer. (When inserted halfway between the inner and outer wall, the skewer should come out dry). My cake looked pretty! :)

Cool upside down on cooling rack for at least an hour before removing from pan. I did do this as I did not want a potentially flat dense angel cake. And I must've made it right because the cake held together as it cooled down upside down. Hooray!

This Angel Food Cake was superb! Light and spongy and airy, but not eggy like a sponge cake. 

Side Note: After the cake set, the top part became sticky when touched. I wonder if it was because I didn't mix the sugar in all that well or if it had anything to do with me not sifting the dry ingredients. Hrmmmm.

In my personal opinion, the cake was just a tad too sweet so I found another recipe that I would like to try sometimes in the future from Joy of Baking. (Uses less sugar and more flour)