I'm not a real fan of angel food cake.  I won't go so far as to say I dislike it but I'll state for the record that I'm not a real fan.  It is rather popular though... and it's definitely something DH just goes ga-ga over.  Go figure.  For his most recent big "milestone" birthday he specifically asked for an angel food cake with chocolate frosting.  He just really likes it.  So the other night I whipped up a few angel food cupcakes and he was very very happy :)  They turned out a lot better than I had expected and while I still won't say I'm a fan, I will say these really are quite good!

These are pretty darn easy to make, especially if you have a stand- or hand mixer.  I don't even want to think about the effort required to whip egg whites into peaks by hand - wow - just too much for for me!   And with just a few ingredients to pull together, these are nice to try out.  They're light... they're fluffy... and not spongy/chewy like I find most angel food cake to be. And topped with some of this wonderful buttercreme (recipe found here) I'd certainly eat them again :)

Angel food Cupcakes

 Yields 8 standard size cupcakes

Ingredients
1/4 cup cake flour
7 tablespoons vanilla sugar  - divided use
2 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Method
Preheat the oven to 325F
Line a muffin pan with 8 cupcake liners

In a small bowl, whisk the flour and 1 tablespoon of the sugar.  Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and using high speed, whip the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt until peaks form - you want them stiffer than soft peaks but don't go so far as to have stiff peaks.  Reduce the speed to medium and slowly add 1 tablespoon of the sugar at a time until all remaining 6 tablespoons have been added then continue to beat for 1 minute. Add the vanilla extract and combine. With the mixer on low speed, add small amounts of the flour mixture into the egg whites, beating after each addition to incorporate all of it.

Spoon the batter into the unlined muffin cups. These will rise to form domes.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes until the tops are golden and spring back when lightly touched (if an indentation remains, they are not done)

Remove from oven and cool on wire racks. 

If you like angel food cake, you'll really like these.  I think they'd be great as the cake part of a fantabulous strawberry shortcake... not that I've got that on the brain or anything ;-)

Have a delicious day!