Once an angel food is baked, it needs to cool upside-down, usually placed over a bottle. The cake clings to the bottom of the pan, so tipping it over "stretches" the cake by way of gravity, which keeps the warm, delicate crumb from collapsing on itself before it's cool.
When soda (we called it pop in Wyoming) switched to 2 liter plastic bottles my mother, aunts and grandma saved a lone soda bottle just for angel food cakes. I think my grandma still has hers over 25 years later.
ReplyDeleterich, we call it "pop" too. See the map here -
ReplyDeletehttp://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2008/08/map-of-pop-soda-and-coke.html
Grandma did this with an old glass coke bottle or a liquor bottle. I didn't know that the practice wasn't universal. Everyone here does it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this is pretty common, far as I can tell. I usually just grab a bottle of beer from the fridge for this purpose, but my parents have a dedicated glass Pepsi bottle circa 1975.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure this technique is in the "Joy of Cooking".
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, there's the bottle, but you can also see a tab hanging down from the back side of the pan to the right of the bottle. The pan originally should have had three of those. You can see the evidence on the near side of the pan of the two pegs that held a missing tab.
ReplyDeleteThe tabs do the same thing -- support the pan upside down with air underneath it. You only need a bottle if you don't have the tabs.
Ah... you learn something every day.
ReplyDeleteTx.
With strawberry season approaching, one would think that TYWKIWDBI would do some heavy exploration of making angel food cake and topping it with strawberries, we loyal fans would even give you the day off to fully enjoy this wonderful spring treat. Enjoy! :-)
ReplyDelete