Vanilla Angel Food Cake with Dark Chocolate Sauce Recipe

Every Week, Yahoo Food spotlights a cookbook that stands out from all the rest. This week’s cookbook is Cooking Light’s Incredibly Decadent Desserts: Over 100 Divine Treats with 300 Calories or Less by Deb Wise (Oxmoor House), a recipe developer and tester for Cooking Light magazine. Read more about Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week here.

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Photograph by Stephen Devries

By Deb Wise, Cooking Light

Vanilla Angel Food Cake with Dark Chocolate Sauce
Serves 12 (serving size: 1 slice and about 11⁄2 tablespoons sauce)
Hands-on: 40 minutes Total: 1 hour 30 minutes

4 ounces cake flour (about 1 cup)
1 ¾ cups sugar, divided
12 large egg whites, at room temperature
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ¾ teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
¾ cup whole milk
¼ cup half-and-half
Dash of salt
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 large egg yolk

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Weigh or lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Sift together flour and ¾ cup sugar.

Place egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until foamy (about 1 minute). Increase speed to high; beat until soft peaks form, about 2 minutes. With mixer at medium speed, add ¾ cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time. Beat until medium peaks form, about 2 minutes (do not overbeat). Add 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla, and beat until just combined.

Sift ¼ cup flour mixture over top of egg white mixture; gently fold in. Repeat procedure with remaining flour mixture, ¼ cup at a time, being careful not to deflate egg whites. Spoon batter into an ungreased 10-inch tube pan, spreading evenly. Bake at 350°F for 40 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Invert pan over the neck of a glass bottle (so the cake is hanging upside down); cool cake completely. Loosen cake from sides of pan using a narrow metal spatula. Invert cake onto a plate; invert again.

Combine milk, half-and-half, 2 tablespoons sugar, dash of salt, and chocolate in a small saucepan; bring to a simmer, stirring until mixture is smooth. Place 2 tablespoons sugar, cornstarch, and egg yolk in a bowl, and stir well with a whisk. Gradually add hot milk mixture to egg mixture, stirring constantly with a whisk. Return milk mixture to pan. Cook over medium heat until mixture boils, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in ¼ teaspoon vanilla. Serve cake with warm sauce.

Calories 212; Fat 2.7g (sat 2g, mono 0.5g, poly 0.2g); Protein 5g; Carbohydrates 41g; Fiber 0g; Cholesterol 19mg; Iron 1mg; Sodium 131mg; Calcium 28mg

Visit Yahoo Food throughout the week for recipes from Cooking Light’s Incredibly Decadent Desserts: Over 100 Divine Treats with 300 Calories or Less by Deb Wise (Oxmoor House).

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