Colleen, my grandmother always cut the end off the ham too. When I asked why, thinking I'd be receiving some culinary secret technique, she told me that it never fit in the roasting pan whole. Yeah, well, I was disappointed, but amused at myself.

Anglophilia, you are right about the age of eggs. I do have hens and I have eggs that are definitely "new", sometimes still warm, so only a few minutes old. However the average age of a egg at the store is over a month already. The farmer has a period of time in which to package the eggs, I think it's 30 days. The stores have another 30 days or so to sell the eggs before their "best by" date expires. There is a way to roughly tell how old your eggs are by checking the numbers on the carton.

On each egg carton, there’s a number printed, from 1 to 365. That number represents the day of the year the carton was filled: 1 being January 1st and 365 being December 31st. Using the code, you can at least tell when the eggs were put in the carton.

For example, a carton with the code 345 means the eggs were put in the carton on the 345th day of the year, or December 11th. If the carton was purchased at the grocery store on January 8th, that means those eggs are at least 28 days old.

Truthfully, those eggs will be just fine in the refrigerator for a lot longer than the "best by" date, but the yolks get flatter and the whites spread out in the pan. You can always "float" them. Drop an egg into a glass of water and if it sinks to the bottom it's fresh. If it tips up on end, but is still submerged, it's getting "old", use it soon. If it floats it's probably still usable, crack it into a cup to check, but use it as soon as possible.

I'm wondering what difference "old" vs "new" eggs makes in angel food, though. Maybe the "old" eggs allow you to beat more air into the whites? I sure don't know.

Annie

New eggs contain more water....moisture..."old" eggs have had some moisture loss through the shell...the whites are a little more "solid protein".
I used to keep a container in the freezer and whenever I used a yolk, the white would go into that container....when I got 1 1/2 cups, I made a cake....I am sure there was a lot of moisture loss by the time the container was filled....but the cakes were good!

annie, is it true that an unwashed egg can be stored at room temperature? (Sorry if this has been asked before!)

Are they stored in fridges in the shops in the US? In Europe they aren't. So we don't refrigerate them at home either.

Yes, store eggs are old when you buy them.

I heard the pan story too -- only it was a girl asking her mother why she cut the end off. The mother said because her mother (the girl's grandmother always did) so the girl asked her grandmother. Grandmother said it was because HER mother always did. So the girl asked the great grandmother and she said it was to fit in the pan!

And another "recipe" story is it called for a nickel chocolate bar. Well, NOW you can't even find a "nickel" chocolate bar!!! You'd have to go back to the originator of the recipe and find the time that that recipe was given and then find out how many ounces a nickel chocolate bar was at that time! Thank heaven there is the internet to answer all those questions now!

I love angel cakes and have mother's pan. She always frosted hers pink!

lovemrmewey, an egg shell has something called "bloom", a protective layer on the shell that keeps contaminants from permeating the otherwise porous shell. Unwashed eggs can safely be kept on the counter until they are used.

Now comes the great big but. BUT, they last twice as long if refrigerated, and they should be refrigerated if they are washed because the bloom is removed. And, if yu refrigerate them, you should not remove them from the fridge and then keep them on the counter, they should be refrigerated from that point on.

Mother Earth News did a year long test of various ways to keep eggs and the upshot was that unwashed eggs would keep on the counter for a month or so without much difference (degradation is initially noticed as texture, not flavor), although the whites become a little more runny. Fresh eggs kept in the refrigerator for 7 months were still pretty good.

https://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/how-to-store-fresh-eggs-zmaz77ndzgoe

So, do you have to refrigerate your eggs? Nope. Will you extend their storage time greatly? Yes. If you use a lot of eggs and can buy them regularly, like they do in Europe, then put a basket on the counter and use them at will. If you are going to try to keep eggs through the winter (when my hens are not laying very much), then into the fridge they go. Last year I managed to keep enough to get me all the way through the winter until March, receiving only about a dozen eggs a week from the "girls". I bought a couple of free ranged cage free dozens and by the time I used them, I had fresh eggs again.

You can also freeze them, which is what I do for baking, but if you like an over easy egg, like I do, that doesn't help for breakfast.

Annie

When I worked in a restaurant, the eggs were never refrigerated - they were stored in flats that contained 30 eggs in each flat. However, the restaurant used so many eggs that I believe new eggs were delivered every day. Besides that, it was cold in the restaurant - at least at night when I was working - as the restaurant was in San Francisco. I made huge batches of coffee cakes and similar items, and so I had to put the all the eggs aside first so that I could keep track of how many I was using. The restaurant also served breakfast and so they made a lot of omelets. Plus it was a fairly large restaurant. The space where it used to be is now divided into several businesses.

I'm pretty sure that most restaurants do not refrigerate eggs.

Islay, most stores in the US refrigerate eggs. There may be some small stores that have fresh/local eggs but most come from big commercial operations and they are refrigerated, both while being shipped and in the store coolers before they are sold. Egg Production facilities also refrigerate eggs before packing. They are washed, graded, checked and packaged, and held under refrigeration until they are trucked to the stores.

US law says that any facilities that have more than 3,000 chickens must wash their eggs, that's an effort to control salmonella, which is more prevalent in big flocks. After the eggs are washed and the "bloom" removed, they must be refrigerated. I believe in Europe the opposite is true, that eggs are not washed before selling them and so they still retain their protective "bloom".

If eggs are going to be used quickly, especially within a day or so, there's no need to refrigerate them, but if you want to store for a longer term, you have to refrigerate them, there is no substitute for that natural protective cuticle/bloom.

Annie

I agree that in the US, grocery store eggs should be refrigerated. But no one in my family has died if I put the eggs out on the counter the night before I was making an angel food cake. Room temperature eggs are best when beating egg whites. If I forget and am in a hurry, I just put the egg whites in my large KA metal mixer bowl, and set that in a bowl over very hot tap water, while I sift the flour and sugar.

Anglophilia, I always take eggs from the refrigerator when baking cakes, room temperature is best, but a dunk in warm water will hurry the process. I normally have a couple dozen sitting on the counter, so it's not an issue. We've also had discussions here about what to do if you leave your eggs in the car overnight, etc. Generally, it's just not a problem and they can also be floated if you are uneasy. Leaving your eggs on the counter for a couple of hours or overnight to allow them to come to room temperature is not the same as placing that dozen on the counter and leaving them for days or weeks.

Room temperature eggs are also used in my house for boiled eggs, as I bring the water to a boil, then add the eggs. If the eggs are cold from the refrigerator they crack sometimes when hitting the cold water.

Annie

When I worked on a chicken farm, I'd bring home eggs all the time. That's when Mom made sure to make Angel food cake, my favourite. What a treat! It took so many eggs and they were free and they were fresh!

Anglo I use your recipe and we love it. I never gave it any thought that it wasn't as light and high as it could be, but I use store eggs.

Anglophilia, That's an interesting realization about the "warm eggs". It's fun to read some of the older community cookbooks and see the wording of the recipes. I try to always put oz. or sizes in my recipes instead of 1 can of this or a box of that; those sizes can change over time and make it hard for people to decipher the recipe when we are no longer around.

Is the recipe for your angel food cake somewhere on the cooking forum?

I would like to try it.

interesting thread ... my grandmother used to make them from scratch ... I remember her cooling them on top of a pop/soda bottle upside down

Right, bragu. That's why the ones now have legs that you turn it upside down on. The cake will stay light and fluffy because it's not sinking. And never, ever put any kind of oil or fat in the pan. It needs to dry sides to climb.

I have never made a angel food cake...well except from a box. Last winter I found angel food cake mixes at Big Lots. They were 2 for 1 $ in pouches..some generic brand so I bit...instead of a AF cake pan I used a sheet cake pan..surprised it turned out very fluffy but only a inch thick. Lol. My grands got a kick out of ripping pieces off to snack on. They called it . ...scrubbing spounges.

I'll have to make a real one one day.

Jasdip

A pan with legs? Where have I been? What will they think of next? *grin*

I have my grandmother's handicapped AF cake pan ...(no legs)

The "legs" are just little tabs. If you didn't know how to make a sponge cake, you could dismiss them as spacers or something similar to do with inventory.

This linked is a classic aluminum angel food cake pan. There are a lot of pans on Amazon labelled angel food but which are weird. Many don't have feet. The decades old design didn't require "improvement". The one linked is slightly improved by having longer legs. That's fine. I haven't tried the others, but they don't look like they'd be as good.

I think I've posted it before, but here it is again.

Whites of 12 eggs (I usually use Jumbo - at least use Extra Large)- room temperature

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 cup cake flour (I use Swansdown cake flour)

1 tsp cream of tartar - heaping teaspoon

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla (use the real stuff, not artificial)

1 tsp almond extract

Sift sugar twice. Set aside.

Beat egg whites a few beats and add salt. Then beat until frothy and add cream of tartar. Continue beating until they make good peaks. Sift sugar into the egg whites. Add extracts and salt.

Sift cake flour 3 times and gently fold into batter.

Put into large tube pan that has been rinsed with cold water.

Put into COLD oven and bake about 55-60 minutes. If using a convection oven, bake about 30-40 minutes. It should be starting to come away from center tube.

Remove cake from oven. Turn cake upside down to cool. When cool, turn rightsize up and put on plate. Either frost it or serve it with whipped cream and fresh fruit - we love it served with red raspberries.

A home made, from scratch, angel food taste is a totally different cake than one from a bakery or made from a mix. It not only doesn't taste the same, the texture is completely different. This one is light as air!

When cutting it, either use two forks, back to back to tear it into a single piece or use an angel food cake slicer, using a sawing action.

I have my mother's AF pan which does have legs but she still turned it upside down on a bottle! And so do I!

What oven temperature do you use?

And here is what I really want to know - what do you do with all the yolks?!

Yolks are good for hollandaise, mayonnaise, etc. Pasta. Etc.

Anglophilia, interesting recipe. If I'm reading it correctly, you have a goodly larger proportion of eggwhite than other recipes. How spongy is the texture?

Jerzeegirl, I make coconut cream pie, which uses yolks only. The whites I save for this angel food cake.

Sorry - I forgot the temp! I have corrected the recipe above. It is baked at 300° - cold oven - no pre-heating.

Yes, a LOT of yolks left over! When I was younger, I just made a double batch of my mother's recipe for Swedish cut-out cookies. I'd just freeze the dough and bring it out to make Christmas cookies.

Here's that recipe. It's the absolutely VERY BEST recipe for a cut-out cookie in the world!

SWEDISH CUTOUT COOKIES

6 egg yolks

3/4 cup sweet butter (unsalted)

2 cups white flour

3/4 cup white sugar

1/2 tsp lemon extract

1/2 tsp salt

3 Tbs heavy cream

Preheat oven to 375°.

Drop egg yolks into gently simmering, salted water. Simmer until hard cooked. Put through a food mill. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar together. Add sieved egg yolks.

Sift flour and salt together.

Add dry ingredients to above mixture, alternating with lemon extract/cream mixture.

Work into a ball. Chill, if necessary.

Roll out thinly. Cut-out cookies using cookie cutters. Place on baking sheet.

Bake 6-8 minutes til edges just being to turn light golden brown. DO NOT OVERCOOK!

When cool, frost with Cutout cookie frosting and decorate.

CUTOUT COOKIE FROSTING

1 box of confectioners sugar (powdered sugar)

milk - enough to make it thin enough to spread - add a little bit at a time

1/2 tsp lemon extract

Mix ingredients until smooth. Mixture should be thin enough to spread-out smoothly, but thick enough to cover cookies. Divide the frosting into multiple small Pyrex cups. Color each cup with a different color - leave one plain (white). I always used red (Santa), green (Xmas trees), blue (stars) for Christmas cookies. Add sprinkles/silver balls to your taste.

Traditionally you made a yellow sponge cake with the yolks. Also in a tube pan.
My recipe for angelfood cake is somewhat different. Been making this for about 55 years...from a box of cake flour. My son was allergic to egg white and was supposed to have an egg yolk every day, either scrambled or cooked with his cereal.....so I made a lot of angelfood cakes....about one every 10 days.

Angel food
cake..

1 1/2 cups
sifted flour ( sift first, then measure)

1/2 c.
sifted sugar

sift
together 3 times

1 1/2 cups
egg white at room temp

1/4 tsp
salt

1 1/4 tsp
cream of tartar

Beat until
soft peaks form....add 1 1/3 cups of sifted sugar slowly and beat until stiff peaks
form,

Add 1 1/2
tsp pure vanilla extract and 1/2 tsp almond extract, beat to blend.

Fold in
the combined flour and sugar 1/4 of the amount at a time.

Pour into
an ungreased tube pan ( it must be a pan that has never been greased and used
for rolls or something else, or the grease in the cracks of the pan will not
allow the cake to "climb the pan")

Place in a pre-heated 375 degree oven and
bake 40 to 50 minutes.

Better to over bake than under bake.

another idea for the yolks, besides Holandaise ( my kids loved it and called it "Holiday sauce") is rolls. sub 2 yolks for a whole egg in a dinner roll.