I don’t remember receiving birthday gifts, except from my godmother, Aunt Hulda. She always sent me a card and perhaps a quarter. But my mother always made a big deal about “our day,” usually repeating the story of our births — where we were born, who the doctor was, the name of the woman who helped manage the household during her confinement, how much we weighed, and our siblings’ reactions to the new baby. And she…
… made an angel food cake honoring each of us seven kids on our birthday. Girls received a white cake, the boys — chocolate. I loved watching her make them, especially when it was my birthday. In those days before television, Mom was often our entertainment — I remember her narrating the production of baking an angel food. She’d begin…
First, I need to stoke up the wood stove to 350 degrees. The fire has to be “just so” because the temperature needs to be maintained for a whole hour while the cake bakes.
I’ll measure, then sift one and a half cups Swans Down™ cake flour with two cups of sugar and one-fourth teaspoon of salt. Sift everything together six times to make certain the dry ingredients are well mixed. When I make a chocolate angel food for your brothers, I substitute one-fourth cup cocoa for a fourth cup cake flour.
Next, I carefully separate a dozen eggs, one at a time—whites in one bowl, yolks in another—I’ll save the yolks to make a sponge cake. I have to be very careful to not get any part of the yolk in the whites, otherwise the cake will be a failure.
I have to beat the egg whites with the egg beater until they are stiff and make little peaks—add a teaspoon of cream of tartar, not quite at the beginning, but after a minute or so. (She’d lift the hand beater out of the bowl to demonstrate just how the peaks should look.)
Next, very carefully, I’ll sift a little bit of the flour mixture into the egg whites, and fold in. Don’t stir, just gently fold in. See how I do it? Add a little more, then fold and keep on until half the flour mixture is gone. Stop and measure very carefully one-teaspoon vanilla extract. Fold that in next, and then continue folding in the rest of the flour.
Never grease the angel food pan! Carefully, with a rubber spatula, spread the batter evenly. I’ll put it in the oven, and we need to watch the clock because in one hour your birthday cake will be done! We need to keep an eye on the oven thermometer too—if it’s too hot, the cake will burn, but we can’t let the temperature drop either.
Don’t any of you kids stamp your feet or slam a door, because if you do, the cake will fall. Did everybody hear that?
An hour later she removed her masterpiece, an angel food cake that had risen a good inch over the top. Three metal feet on the outside perimeter of the pan prevented a “cake collapse” when she overturned it on her breadboard for cooling. After an hour or so, she’d slip a knife between the cake and the pan to loosen the cake all around — and then we’d witness the creation transferred to her favorite cake platter. Then we’d all clamor to taste the crumb residue in the pan — yummy.
And she wasn’t finished — she separated more eggs, using the whites to create “seven-minute frosting” in a double boiler over the hot cook stove. Yes, seven more minutes of hand beating.
Is it any wonder we Christoffersen kids remember our birthday cakes? I’ve never made one from scratch, but I think of Mom every time I open a Betty Crocker™ Angel Food mix. I don’t own a hand beater, a flat wire whisk like she used for “folding,” nor do I own a double boiler or sifter. Truly, does anyone make an angel food or seven-minute frosting from a recipe anymore?
And I wonder…did any of us kids ever thank Mom for making our birthdays very special every year?
And brother Carl remembers that Mom sent him an angel food via the post office for his birthday when he was a student at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL!
