Blueberry Angel Food Cake

The lightest and fluffiest Angel Food Cake, brilliantly blue and full of fresh berries. This easy Blueberry Angel Food Cake recipe is all natural, no added dyes and packed with flavour. Topped off with some cream and more berries, it's irresistible and fun!

Jump to:

• Tell Me About This Recipe
• Ingredient Notes
• How to Make Blueberry Angel Food Cake
• Cooling and Serving
• Expert Tips
• Variations
• FAQs
• Blueberry Angel Food Cake

Tell Me About This Recipe

• All natural colouring - this cake is a gorgeous purpley blue on the inside, but rest assured there are no food dyes involved here! All of the colour comes naturally from blueberry powder, freeze dried and pulverized blueberries. No artificial colours or flavours.
• Fresh blueberries - in addition to the blueberry powder, this recipe also uses fresh blueberries in both the cake itself and as a simple topping.
• Light and airy cake - Angel Food Cake is mainly characterised by it's super light and airy texture, along with a crisp dry topping that is prone to crackling. This blueberry version has all the hallmarks of the classic with a fun twist of flavour and colour!

Ingredient Notes

This recipe is fundamentally a variation of my classic Almond Angel Food Cake, but with a brilliantly blueberry-filled twist!

You'll need:

• Egg whites - lots and lots of egg whites! For this recipe, you'll only need the whites, so save the yolks for something else, like a custard. Tip: you can freeze egg yolks if you're not going to use them immediately, but note that they don't freeze as well as egg whites, so uses may be limited after defrosting.
• Sugar - either superfine granulated sugar or caster sugar work well here. The sugar will be divided, with a portion being used for the meringue and a portion being added straight to the base of the cake batter.
• Flour - either all purpose or plain flour work best in this recipe. This will need to be sifted. In fact, I strongly recommend double sifting for this cake, see my Traditional Angel Food Cake for details.
• Cornstarch - this will help to lighten the flour, enhancing the cake's airiness. In the UK, cornstarch is known as cornflour, but note that in the US cornflour is an entirely different product!
• Cream of tartar - this helps to strengthen the meringue and stabilize the egg whites.
• Salt
• Vanilla extract
• Blueberry powder - freeze dried blueberry powder, made from pure natural blueberries. This is available online and in some specialty stores, often as an ingredient to make smoothies.
• Fresh blueberries

How to Make Blueberry Angel Food Cake

To make this Angel Food Cake with blueberries, you'll want to start by making the meringue.

• In a large mixing bowl, beat together the egg whites with the cream of tartar and vanilla until frothy soft peaks forms.
• Add the sugar (the portion for the meringue) a couple of teaspoons at a time, continuing to beat.
• Once all of the sugar for the meringue is added, continue beating (increase the speed to high if you've not already done so) until you have glossy thick meringue with stiff peaks (image 1 below).
• Set the meringue aside for a moment while you prepare the dry ingredients.
• Double sift your flour, cornstarch, salt, remaining sugar and blueberry powder (image 2 below).
• Add the double sifted dry ingredients to the meringue and gently fold through with a spatula (image 3 below) until combined and ensuring there are no unmixed pockets of flour mixture (image 4 below). Avoid over beating or knocking too much air out of the meringue!

• Spoon the mixture into your Angel Food Cake pan so that you have a good coverage around the whole pan (image 5 below).
• Pat your fresh blueberries dry if you've recently rinsed these to remove excess water and sprinkle these over the surface of your cake batter.
• Use a table knife to carefully swirl your cake batter with the blueberries (images 6 and 7 below). This will help to even out the cake as well without needing to spread it even with a spatula. Again, try not to overmix.
• Bake in the centre of a preheated oven until the top is golden and dry (image 8 below).

Cooling and Serving

Once the cake is baked, remove this from the oven. Immediately invert it over over a plate of piece of parchment paper.

Allow it to cool completely for about an hour, then carefully remove from the pan.Run a kitchen knife around the sides and then the base of the pan. This will allow you to release the cake more easily. Handle with care as it is a very light cake and the top will be dry and flakey.

Place the cake on a cake stand or other serving plate.

Top slices with whipped cream and fresh lightly sugared blueberries.

Expert Tips

• Use an ungreased Angel Food Cake pan - these are loose bottomed, have a hole in the centre and little 'feet' around the edge to allow you to invert the pan while it cools. It is important for the structure of the cake that this be ungreased. Any grease will impact the meringue and the cake's super light quality.
• Make sure you have stiff peaks before folding the flour into the meringue. Once you add the flour, there's no going back if the meringue was not full developed. If this is the case, the cake is unlikely to rise and may be dense and spongey.
• Use a kitchen knife to swirl the fresh blueberries in to the cake. Swirling the cake with a knife has two purposes, it will distribute the berries and will also help to remove air bubbles without overworking the batter.
• Invert the pan as soon as it is out of the oven and allow to cool upside down. This helps the cake to keep it's lightness without collapsing in on itself.
• Carefully run a knife around the cake wherever it is attached to the pan. This includes the edges, around the centre hole and then, once the sides of the pan are removed, around the bottom too. Avoid pulling on the cake as it is light and delicate and will tear.

Variations

Some quick and easy options here to change up my Blueberry Angel Food and make it your own:

• Different toppings - I love serving my Angel Food Cakes with light and fruity additions, like whipped cream and berries. You can certainly serve this plain or opt for a more substantial decoration, like frostings, different berries or just a different flavoured cream. Almond cream or a blueberry whipped cream (add a teaspoon or two of blueberry powder to my Stabilized whipped cream recipe) are great options!
• With or without fresh blueberries - I'm a huge fan of fresh fruits, especially berries. But I know all too well that these aren't always widely available and can be costly. This recipe can be made without the berries or using frozen berries. If using frozen blueberries, let these defrost first to avoid excess moisture impacting the meringue while baking. I don't recommend dried blueberries, as these will be tougher in texture - like raisins.
• Using cake flour - for my recipe, I use a combination of all purpose flour and cornstarch. This is mainly because cake flour is not widely available in my local area. You can substitute my flour and cornstarch for cake flour (¾ cup flour + 2 tablespoons cornstarch = 1 cup cake flour).
• Make them miniature - you can use other sizes and shapes of pans for these cakes. For best results, pans dedicated to Angel Food Cakes or silicone will work best. This is because you will not be able to grease the pan that you use - butter, oils and most cooking sprays can impact the meringue. I have not tested this cake in different pans, but baking times will vary.

FAQs

Looking for more blueberry inspiration? Try:

• Blueberry Brown Sugar Pavlova
• Blueberry Jam Cake
• Easy Blueberry Jam without Pectin
• Blueberry Cinnamon Rolls
• Blueberry Strawberry Shortcake Trifle