Angel Cake

Nutritional Information: 8 portions per recipe
Calories: 186 (or 154 if you use Silver Spoon's Half Spoon sugar)
Carbohydrates: 45
Fat: 3
Saturated Fat: 2
Protein: 6
Sugar: 33

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Shopping List:

• 2 Large Eggs (whites only, at room temperature!)
• 1 cup/128 g white sugar OR 0.5 cup/64 g Half Spoon sugar
  
• 1 cup/128g self raising flour
• 1 tablespoon/15g baking powder
• 1 cup/230ml skimmed milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  
• Pinch of salt
• 50g low fat butter (I used Weight Watchers half fat butter)
• 60g icing sugar
• Food colouring/cake decorations of your choice (optional)

Method:

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F or 175 degrees C.

Step 2: Beat the egg whites until stiff and fluffy. You'll know when they're ready because they'll be like a bubbly foam. Please note, this takes a while when doing it by hand, and afterwords your arm will feel like it's about to fall off. I recommend using an electric whisk. But yes, here is what they should look like when you're done::

See that handle? That's a fork. I did this by hand. Because I'm an idiot.

Step 3: Set the egg whites aside for now. Sift your sugar, flour, salt and baking powder together and set aside. If you're like me and don't have a sieve, you can use a fork. It should be perfectly mixed with no bumps or clumps, like so:

Step 4: Pour the milk and vanilla essence into a pan. Heat on high until it's at scalding temperature, then turn it to medium. Make sure you stir it the whole time so that the milk doesn't scorch. You'll know the milk is ready when it starts to form little bubbles around the edge and it steaming, but it's boiling. Don't let it boil!

Step 5: Sift the flour mixture one more time, then add the hot milk and vanilla mixture. Stir it thoroughly.

Step 6: Add the egg whites into the mix and stir in. At this point, you can add food colouring if you wish, or even bake half of the mix first to make coloured layers. Before you colour it, the base should be very pale, like this:

Step 7: Coat a baking tin with butter and pour in the mixture. To bake it all will take between 50 minutes - 1 hour. If you're doing half of it first for a layered effect, it will take 20-30 minutes.

Step 8: After you remove the cake from the oven, place it on a cooling rack. As it cools, you can make the butter icing. Mash the butter up with the smooth side of a spoon to soften it, then add the icing sugar gradually. You can also add colouring to this.

Step 9: Decorate with the icing as you please, then keep in an airtight container. This cake will last 3-5 days.