The Abqaiq Cookbook - 1973
Put batter in regular cake pan; do not grease pan as you want cake to stick firmly. Study your oven to find out if it bakes well on the bottom. If cake does not crust on the bottom, it will fall out when inverted and shrink in the fall. Put cake in moderately hot oven and here you must use judgment – not hot enough for biscuits but too hot for butter cake – experience only can teach you this point. If you see cake browning before it raises to top of pan, throw open your oven door and let cold air rush in and cool oven instantly. Be not afraid – the cold air will not hurt the cake – two minutes will cool any oven. Watch cake closely, don’t be afraid to open oven door every three or four minutes. This is the only way to properly bake this cake. When cake has raised above top of pan increase your heat and finish baking rapidly. Cake will bake in about 25 minutes. When it’s done, it begins to shrink. Let it shrink back to level of pan. Watch carefully at this stage and take out of oven the moment it shrinks back to level, invert, let hang in pan until cold. Then cut cake around the sides and center tube. Then with knife handle, knock back the slide on pan, run knife under cake from both sides and turn out. Sponge cake should be baked just like Angel Food.
This method for baking an Angel Food cake came in a box of Swans Down cake. Flour that my grandmother had before she was married in early 1900. Living in a foreign land and not always having the best of equipment to bake with, this method can still be very useful today.
Helen Shields