Black & White Angel Food Cake

in Cakes & Cupcakes, Chocolate

Black and White Angel Food Cake

We interrupt your regularly scheduled rich & decadent chocolate desserts with something lighter: a pretty angel food cake. Half vanilla, half chocolate. My favorite part of this cake is that each slice of cake comes with a surprise: what will the chocolate layer look like in this slice?

Angel food cake is one of those things that aren’t that bad for you. It’s actually fat free. Until you top it with a dollop of vanilla bean whipped cream 🙂

Black and White Angel Food Cake with Vanilla Bean Whipped Cream

Half vanilla, half chocolate angel food cake.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup cake flour
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided
  • 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 12 large egg whites
  • 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 Tbsp dutch process cocoa*
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1 vanilla bean
  • 2 Tbsp sugar

Instructions

* You can use any cocoa powder but the color and flavor of your chocolate layer will be lighter.
  1. Preheat oven to 325. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Whisk with 3/4 cup sugar in a small bowl and set aside.
  2. Place cream of tartar, salt, and egg whites in the bowl of your mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on high speed until foamy. Slowly add remaining 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, beating until stiff peaks form.
  3. Add lemon juice and vanilla extract (not bean). Sift flour mixture over egg whites, 1/4 cup at a time and fold in after each addition.
  4. Spoon half of batter into an ungreased 10-inch tube pan. Break air pockets by cutting through batter with a knife. Use a rubber spatula or large spoon to gently create indentations in the batter so the chocolate batter can settle lower in some places. Sift cocoa over remaining batter; fold in. Spoon cocoa batter evenly over top of vanilla batter; break air pockets by cutting through cocoa layer with a knife. Bake for ~45 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched.
  5. Invert pan and cool completely. Loosen cake from sides of pan using a narrow metal spatula. Invert cake onto a plate.
  6. To make the whipped cream, add heavy cream and sugar to the bowl of your mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Split and scrap the vanilla bean and add the scrapings to the mixer bowl. Whisk on high for ~2 minutes, or until light and fluffy.

Notes

Yields: 12 servings

Adapted from Cooking Light

Estimated time: 1 hour

18 comments… add one
  • One of my New Year’s resolutions is to learn how to make a perfect angel food cake from scratch. This looks like the a wonderful practice recipe because I would never get tired of eating it.

  • I actually love angel food cake and think that homemade is really underrated. This black and white version is gorgeous!

  • Oooh gorgeous! And fat free you say? Hmm, we’d probably figure out a way to remedy that, cover it in chocolate sauce or something…!

  • So pretty and creative! The chocolate layer is a beautiful addition to what I always think of as a “plain” angel food cake.

  • Beautiful! I’ll take a slice, with whipped please 🙂

  • I think BECAUSE it’s fat free, you need to add some whipped cream to it. Even out the flavors. And all that jazz. looks delicious. I love a dessert that keeps you guessing.

  • Yum! Can’t wait to try this one. Ben loves angel food cake and I’ve always been indifferent, but the chocolate portion might convince me otherwise 🙂

    • @Annie, I’m in the indifferent category, too. Its “just” angel food cake. My favorite part of an angel food cake is the big scoop of macerated strawberries that we usually put on top 🙂

  • Awesome contrasts in color. Beautiful.

  • I have never cared much about angel food cake, but this looks very impressive!

  • I don’t think I’ve ever had chocolate angel food cake, but I can’t imagine there’s a single thing bad about it! This might just get me back on the angel food cake bandwagon….

  • How did I never think of adding chocolate?? This looks great, I’m pretty meh on angel food cake usually, it’s just a device to get to the toppings usually, but I thnik this one would be awesome on its own too!

  • Cindy

    I LOVE….LOVE…..LOVE angel food cake!! I can eat an entire cake in one night if I allowed myself to!Now add chocolate? That means much more to love about it!

    Until now I have always made a box cake. I know, I’m bad! I do not have a wisk attachment to my mixer. What do I do now? Use a regular mixer?

    I bet this would be even better with a warm chocolate sauce dribbled over it! 🙂

    • Do you have a hand mixer? If you can get eggs whites to stiff peaks with the regular beaters, then that’s really the important part to getting that light & fluffy cake. My grocery store has a house brand mix that’s actually very good with a little extra vanilla and just a bit of almond extract.

  • Hi. Wanted to let you know I saw this on G+ today and couldn’t find your link to tag you. Are you on G+? This person shared your pic and full recipe. 🙁 https://plus.google.com/104335239803191367590/posts/YDjw2LD5TMw

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