I have connected with my cousin Lynette on Facebook and she asked me lately if I had Grandma’s angel food cake with strawberry glaze recipe.  Every birthday growing up my Grandma Boerschig would make whatever cake we requested  for our birthday.  Often I went for the pineapple upside down cake make in an iron skillet, but more often I went for her Angel Food Cake with a hardened strawberry glaze.  Sometimes she made a homemade Angel Food Cake and sometimes she used a box mix.  You could tell if  she used a box by the colored speckles in the cake!  I remember her teaching me how to make the glaze once, with a tin of frozen sliced strawberries, but for the life of me I am not sure if she used egg white or egg yolk.  This cake I made with a yolk, and except for it it being made with fresh berries and not hardening because I put it on so thick, I think this glaze is dang good!

Angel Food Cake Recipe adapted from www.epicurious.com

1-1/2 cups egg whites (11 to 12 large eggs) room temperature (save 1 yolk for glaze)

1-1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar

1 cup sifted cake flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

a 10-inch tube pan (about 4 inches deep) with a removable bottom

Macerated Strawberries and Glaze

4 cups thinly sliced ripe strawberries

½ cup granulated sugar

Combine above strawberries and sugar and refrigerate overnight.

1 egg yolk

½ cup powdered sugar

For the Cake

Set oven rack in lower third of oven and preheat oven to 350°F.

Sift together powdered sugar, flour, and salt onto a sheet of wax paper.  Beat whites in mixer until frothy.

Add cream of tartar and beat at medium speed until they form soft peaks.  Add granulated sugar gradually, beating, and continue beating just until whites are thickened and form soft, droopy peaks. Beat in vanilla.

Sprinkle one fourth of sifted dry ingredients over whites and fold in with a rubber spatula gently but thoroughly. Fold in remaining dry ingredients, one third at a time. Gently pour batter evenly into ungreased tube pan and bake until top is light golden, cake retracts a bit from pan and springs back when touched lightly, and a tester comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes.

Invert pan and cool cake completely. Place cake small end up on an over-sized plate.

Divide cake into 3 even-ish layers with serrated knife.   Arrange 1/3 of the macerated strawberries on the two inside layers of the cake. Sprinkle a bit of the juice on as well.

For the Glaze

Strain the remaining strawberries and mash with a fork or wooden spoon –

Beat the egg yolk with about 2 tablespoons of the strawberry juice and stir gently into the mashed berries – try not to make a lot of bubbles. Gradually and gently stir in sifted powdered sugar until consistency of lumpy gravy. Drizzle over cake. Top with any remaining strawberries.

I think I went a bit heavy on the drizzle and the glaze will probably not harden up – perhaps 2 tbl of the strawberry juice is too much also.  It’s delicious whether it hardens or not!