Heavenly Cake Bakers: Cinnamon Mexican Chocolate Orange Angel Food Cake

This week's Heavenly Cake was an uncharacteristically open assignment, Angel Food Cake any way we wanted. We were instructed to take the Angel Food Cake base recipe (based on one egg white) and follow our bliss. I had already made the Chocolate Tweed Angel Food Cake for the last free choice cake, so I thought I would change it up a little. I actually made two cakes, one last Friday, which I tore into too soon and rendered unphotographable, though still very good. The second, which I made last night, was a riff on the chocolate tweed using grated Mexican drinking chocolate (Ibarra brand), Vietnamese cinnamon, orange oil, and almond extract. The orange oil and the cinnamon became the dominant flavors, but the chocolate made a pretty pattern throughout. I made the cake in a 9.25" tube pan, and I multiplied the recipe by 12, which seemed to work well.

No problems with any part of these angel food cakes, except the part where most of my quart jar of egg whites got used up for other breakfast foods while I was dawdling (read: leading tourists around non-stop, wearing a cape) on making cake #2. So now I broke a bunch more eggs, and might have to make some ice cream. Shucks.

Also, angel food cake just doesn't go well with ice cream. Something about the textures is just totally off. I bet whipped cream is the way to go, though.

Aesthetically minded types might have noticed that some of the blog photos in recent weeks have been more dramatically designed. Matt, the usual (and usually uncredited) blog photographer, has decided that he wants to employ a more intense style, and I'm right behind him as me makes me look very very good.