Using an Angel Food Cake Tin

The key to the classic light-as-air texture of an angel food or chiffon cake is to suspend the baked cake in an inverted tin until it cools completely so that the crumb texture doesn’t compress as it cools. For this you need to do two things:

1. Use a specialty cake tin called an Angel Food Cake tin. Essentially it is a deep ring tin with slightly sloped sides, a loose base and small 'feet' around the top rim that elevates the tin off the bench top when inverted.

2. Don’t grease the tin… Yep this is the one time when you can get away with not greasing or lining your tin – you want the cake to stick to it so that it is suspended when inverted which will prevent it from deflating until the crumb structure is cool and set.

Because the cake does stick to the tin, once cool you will need to carefully release it by running a small palette knife between the cake and the tin. You won’t get a perfect finish, but this will be overlooked as the result will be a beautifully airy crumb texture that can’t be achieved without this technique.