Angelfood Cake with Rose Glaze

Growing up in Wisconsin, it was customary for schoolchildren to bring treats to class on their birthdays. I always assumed this was true for everyone, after all, it happened on all the tv shows on Nick at Night, too. After living on the coasts, however, I've learned that in fact this was one of those holdovers from a more innocent age that middle America was able to keep while big-city coastal folks gave into fear mongering about razor blades and allergies. I get the sense even middle America has sadly gone that way now, too. But not me. I still take treats for my birthday. Granted it's to work rather than school, and as my coworkers are adults who are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves whether my food will purposely or inadvertently kill them.

This year for my birthday, I decided to try one of my old favorites from growing up, with a new twist of my own. Mommy used to make me the most wonderful confetti angel-food cakes. Spongy and spring-like, I remember how the mix from the box would foam as she put the beaters into the bowl. This came right before my favorite part, licking the beaters.

My top criteria for any recipe is not needing to run to the store. Luckily, I seemed to have all the ingredients I needed. The recipe called for egg whites not by egg, but by cup. After I separated enough egg whites, I saw why. 8 eggs. Eight!

Egg yolks ready for the fridge. There were a lot of custards in my future

I usually do all my mixing by hand with my sturdy nsima stick from Ba Joyce's grandfather, but it was clear I was not going to successfully beat egg whites with a thick slap of wood. I tried using my egg whisk, but that was also insufficient. So, I pulled out my pretty pink handmixer from Mommy and went to town on those egg whites.---But not too much to town because that would cause them to collapse.---I think I did ok; the cake came out fluffy. I didn't have a tube pan, so I used my bundt pan. Getting the cake out was a little difficult, but not too bad. So by this point, so far so good. I have a warm and fairly whole fluffy angel food cake. Then I got a little too creative.

Foamed egg whites

I decided to try not just a rose glaze, but also a rose butter cream frosting. I found basic recipes for glaze and butter cream frosting and added rose water and red food coloring to both. The butter cream frosting would not cream. I don't know if it was the store-brand butter or adding the rose water to early or something else, but it would not cream. The butter stayed globbed up, globs of butter rolled in sugar, which is still yummy.---My specialty is tasty mush disasters.---I sliced the cake in half horizontally and spread a layer of the sweet gobby goo, putting the top of the cake back on to create a gigantic sugary sandwich. "Angel food cake with rose butter filling." It's all about the presentation, right, verbal included?

And then I kept going. The rose glaze turned out like it ought to have. Win! Except I did something a tad foolish. I put the cake on my cake carrying platter and drizzled the cake with the glaze. Sounds perfectly fine and dandy, except this was the night before I was taking the cake to work. The glaze had .all. .night. to soak into the cake, and boy did it ever. The next morning, when I opened my cake carrier to set up a little come-and-get-it-station in our break room, whole sections of the cake were bright pink and the bottom of the cake was rimmed in pink syrup. Mmmmm.

Birthday cake! Angel food cake with rose butter filling and a rose glaze (the night before all the glaze soaked in).

Actually, it was quite delicious, just best in small portions. All the better for work, more to go around!