Family Tradition: Angel Food Cake

Angel food cake IS birthday cake!

Waiting for frosting

Who doesn’t like cake? As a kid, it was my favorite food, a treat reserved for birthdays, and it was always the same: Angel Food cake with pink frosting, served on a raised glass cake stand. I was told it was a family tradition, and was delighted to find photographic evidence from back in the 50s when my mom was a kid: the same cake!

Mom and Angel Food Cake, 1950s

Now I’m not sure when or with whom our family tradition originated, but I do know that for every one of my years, there is a photo of me, grinning ear to ear, in front of the Angel Food cake on the glass stand. Decades later, I made the same cake for my daughter and am still using the same stand. So when the time came to bake a cake for my Auntie’s 80^th you can guess what I made: Angel Food cake with pink frosting. It’s a family tradition.

Auntie with Angel Food Cake 2022

Me with snake while Mom frosts the cake, 1970s

My 10th Birthday, 1980s

My 21st Birthday - white frosting that I decorated and a different cake plate, 1990s

Thank you Karen for this pic from my 39th birthday!

Mother herself with TWO Angel Food Cakes, 2014. Looks like we were doing berries and cream rather than frosting that year

The recipe itself became popular in this country in the 30s but actually dates to about 100 years before that. It’s pretty timeless and delicious and everyone likes it. And while baking it from scratch isn’t that difficult, I have to admit to using a mix. So did my mom, who otherwise made everything from scratch and was a gourmet cook and instructor. But she was also a working single mom and when throwing a party all by herself, she picked her battles. So I do the same, though I will include a recipe from the kind of cookbook that all American housewives would have had in the 40s. If you are not simultaneously trying to kid-proof your home and decorate for the imminent arrival of multiple pint-sized holy terrors, go ahead and make it yourself! Otherwise, just use the mix, nobody's gonna complain. 

Standard American Cookbook from the 40s

Not too complicated, but what they don't mention is how long it takes to beat the eggs!

Ingredients, including Mom's now vintage candles & holders

So easy; just add water to the mix

Beat with a mixer for 90 seconds

Batter will be thick

And it's done

Invert to cool

Cut around the sides

Part of the charm is the frosting: my mom always made a cream-cheese based frosting and used red food coloring to turn it pink. (Except the one year she made it blue and my 6 year old daughter cried because it wasn’t pink, but that’s another story.) The frosting is so good that if there was any leftover, she would put it in Tupperware and let me spread it on graham crackers as an after-school snack.

Mom's cream cheese frosting. Yum.

Frosting is sugar, citrus, coloring, cream cheese and milk (not shown)

Adding food coloring is psychedelic

Think Pink!

Frosting the cake

The cake is ready for candles! These are the same holders my Mother used.

Here's to family traditions! May you and yours have many occasions to celebrate that call for a special, and simple, cake. 

NOTE: if you need any of the kitchen tools shown, find them in my Idea List on Amazon: https://a.co/0uId9bG

Poppy Seed Cake

Tasty even with no frosting! 

Do you ever crave a taste from childhood that you just can’t find anywhere? For me, it’s my mother’s poppy seed cake, and I found it in the adorable “Hasty Lady Cookbook” from BEST YEAR EVER IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, 1971 – thank you, League of Women Voters of Illinois!

My favorite cookbook ever in terms of format. I love 1971!

Now I know you’re thinking, but Carrie, you’re always saying you don’t use mixes and packaged foods are gross – and you’re right. But there are times when you’ve got to eat that foot that’s in your mouth if you want to eat cake. So there you are.

Don't you love how I have the organic eggs to offset the cake mix?

This cake calls for cake mix and Jell-O pudding mix (Hah! My one processed food go-to, Jell-O! My eternal love!) and then some pantry staples, including “Butter-flavored oil” – WHAT THE HECK? I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is and I don’t want to know what that is. Let’s just go with vegetable oil, how ‘bout. Oh and cream sherry – is just a nicer quality than “cooking sherry” which, if you’ve talked to any chef, isn’t good enough to clean the toilet with anyway.

Going into the oven - soon it will smell REALLY GOOD!

Finally, this cake is nice and moist even with no glaze, though the glaze is a nice touch. If you want to make it look fancy and French-ify it, shake some powdered sugar over the top with a sieve and stick a sprig of mint or edible flower next to the cake et voila, nobody knows it came from a mix! Enjoy.

Poppy Seed Cake

1 pkg (18.5 oz) yellow cake mix

1 pkg (3.75 oz) instant vanilla pudding mix

4 eggs

1 cup sour cream

½ cup butter-flavored oil

½ cup cream sherry

1/3 cup poppy seeds

Combine all ingredients, stirring to blend. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer for 5 minutes, or 700 strokes (!!!) by hand. Scrape sides of bowl frequently.

Pour into greased 10 inch bundt pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Cool in pan for 15 minutes; turn out on wire rack. Cool

If desired, glaze with thin confectioners’ icing flavored with cream sherry.

Harvey Wallbanger Cake

I must say, it feels funny to pour vodka into cake mix, but the result is something else!

I had been wanting to make this cake since the time a few years back when I had it at a Christmas pot luck and everyone there was exclaiming about it being THE 70s cake. Since I am now on my “70s kick” I just, well, had to! Plus, it was delicious, and, I was told, easy.

The problem is, I really like to work from vintage cook books and photos but, for the life of me, I could not find this recipe in print anywhere! None of my own recipe books, nor any of my boyfriend’s (but he DID have a Galliano pamphlet with drink recipes and an offer to buy a Party Kit with T shirts for just $2.00!) had the recipe, so I cheated and printed out the recipe from an online site about the history of different cocktails. (www.beercocktailsspirits.suite101.com) For this and so many other reasons, do I love the Internet.

From the (oracle) Internet, I enjoyed learning about Harvey, the surfer who drank too many Galiano screw-drivers and walked into the wall, thus the creation of the drink’s name. I admit, I giggled the whole time I mixed up the cake, which is almost cheating in itself, as it is merely a doctored mix with pudding and booze! Never mind, the batter alone was heavenly, and a lovely yellow-orange sunset color as well. I wondered whether I was getting drunk licking the spoon!

And easy cake, done in a bundt pan with the easiest of all toppings, a glaze (made with powdered sugar and more of the Harvey Wallbanger drink) that you dump over it and no matter how sloppy, it manages to look perfect.

This was made as a surprise cake for a friend’s birthday for a small group of about 12, and wow was it a hit! There was but one tiny sliver left at the end of the night, and my boyfriend and I fought over even that! AND everyone at the party requested the recipe.

AND so I say: LONG LIVE THE 70s!!!

Harvey Wallbanger Cake:

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1 small box instant vanilla pudding
• ½ cup oil
• 4 eggs
• ¼ cup vodka
• ¼ cup Galliano
• ¾ cup orange juice

Mix cake mix, pudding, oil, eggs, vodka, Galliano and orange juice, and beat for 4 minutes. Pour batter into a greased and floured tube (bundt) pan. Bake at 350 for 45 min, or until the cake tests as done.

Serve dusted with powdered sugar, or use a glaze made of 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon orange juice, 1 tablespoon vodka, and 1 tablespoon Galliano.