Cake or pastry flour is made from soft wheat, which has less protein than plain flour. It's needed to create the beautifully light and delicate angel cake texture in this recipe.
Excellent recipe. When I have a large supply of eggs, this is how I use them. I never have cake flour, so I use 1/8 cup cornstarch and 7/8 cup of all purpose flour. - 04 Jul 2006 (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)
Totally awesome! I just made it for the 2nd time this weekend, and it turned out perfectly without any changes. As for baking time, you can never go totally by any recipe. Always deduct 10 minutes, set your timer and go from there. Every oven is different, as most are not calibrated exactly. If you follow this recipe exactly, your cake will rise above the level of the pan and have excellent flavor and texture. Note the recipe tells you to add the sugar gradually (no need to process if you do this!), and then later to FOLD in the flour, etc. This means to use a spatula and fold from top to bottom--don't use your mixer and no stirring. If you don't fold, or if you overfold, you will loose your volume for the cake! I sliced this into 3 layers and filled with lemon curd and white chocolate buttercream, then frosted w/the buttercream! Everyone totally loved it and raved about how incredible the cake was!! This is a GREAT recipe! - 07 Feb 2005 (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)
Excellent recipe!!! I made sure I really whipped the egg whites as other posters had said and this turned out great for me. Instead of make this in the tube pan, I made muffins out of it. The recipe for me made 24 muffins (make sure to use liners or they do stick). I have my muffins currently frozen and I take one down a night for a strawberry dessert. For anyone interested also I am on weight watchers and I calculated the muffins to be about 1 1/2 pts a piece. A great snack - 07 May 2003 (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)