Angel Food (Cup)Cake

Alright, so tomorrow is one of my weekly-ish game nights. It's gonna be some risky business with a lovely game of Risk which, coincidentally, was put off last time due to food business. So this time we are making food business simple, fast, and really fun for the group. Therefore I'm setting up a fondue night!
Now you might think "oh no, I have no fondue pot". I've been thinking this for most of the day, but that's not a big problem. You get a double boiler or a bowl sitting comfortably on a pot and use that instead of the fondue pot. To keep things warm a little longer keep everything assembled when you bring it out. Plus, if it needs more heating, it's easy enough to stick it back on the stove for a couple minutes.

Now I know that's not a very fancy way to present the food but alas I am a poor college dummy who happened to get rid of the only fondue pot she ever owned.

Enough on that though, tonight I'm just focusing on prepping for tomorrow. The cheese fondue is simple with some veggie, apples, hot dogs, and bread dippers. For the dessert portion there will clearly be berries and banana, but I also wanted to have angel food cake. It's light and sweet and requires only egg whites. Oh wait, that last one sucks. So here are some improvements.

First off try to really estimate how much people will be eating. With everything else that I have going on tomorrow and a fairly small crowd of about 5-8 people I figure I don't need much. So I took a basic recipe and halved it.

Basic Recipe:
12 egg whites from large eggs
1.5 cups sugar (split in two)
1 cup flour
1.5 tspn cream of tartar
vanilla/almond extract (tspn or so)
Baked at 375 F for 20-30 minutes

What I used:
6 egg whites
~3/4 cups sugar
0.5 cup flour
little more than 0.5 tspn cream of tartar
and I eye balled some vanilla
Baked at 375 F for 15 minutes for the cake and 13 minutes for the cupcakes.

The cake came out great which means that perfect measurement isn't required in this cake. Thank goodness. Though personally I'd put in a little less sugar next time and add the almond extract. Also I might go as low as 3 eggs since my cake tin is only 5 inches in diameter and I had to use cupcake tins to finish off the rest of the batter.

The method is quite simple and you'll see this in many recipes involving egg whites. Simply whip up your eggs till frothy, add the cream of tartar and extracts, keep whipping to soft peaks and add half the sugar. Whip to hard peaks. Your eggs should hold their shape at this point and have a lovely gloss. If you added brown vanilla extract, you will notice your eggs will lose that color a bit as you keep whipping them so no worries.

In a separate bowl mix together the remaining sugar and flower and give it a quick whisk to loosen up the mixture and add in some air. Finally fold your flour mixture gently into your eggs. You often hear that folding is a gentle process and in no way am I saying it isn't, but don't be afraid to get it all mixed up. More folding and less squishing but get it all mixed up.

Finally, dump the whole thing into an ungreased pan. The pan should be oil free to allow the batter to climb up the sides as it cooks. Bake it at 375 F for about 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown and a little crisp. Once it's done I recommend placing it upside down on a cooling rack to cool. This will keep it from deciding to deflate as some of my attempts have done when I was young and naive. All that's left now is whipped cream and an empty stomach. Enjoy :)