RECIPE: “What do I do with these egg whites?” Cake

I’ve been doing a lot of baking for the holidays, as I am sure you are too! Last weekend, I ended up with 5 egg whites left over from my flurry of cookie dough prep. People have told me that egg whites are freezable. I have never tried it. I usually like to make something with them quickly, but I am not a huge fan of angel food cake, meringues, or egg white omelets. I hate throwing away food, so I resolved to come up with a go-to cake recipe for egg whites. I did some digging. I found a basic sugar cake recipe floating around the web. I adapted it to suit my approach to baking, my amount of egg whites and my tastes. I tried using my snow flake cake mold for this cake. But I am going to warn you-even with it being non stick, using a non stick spray and a healthy sprinkling of flour, it still stuck. I recommend using a simple pan and lining it with parchment. The egg whites and sugar make it a touch sticky.

You can use butter instead of shortening, but my guess is it will feel denser and richer-and add calories. But hey-it’s the holidays. Calories, what?!?

4-5 egg whites, at room temperature

1/2 cup vegetable shortening, room temperature

1 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 tsp. almond extract

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 cups plus 2 Tbsp. flour

4 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

confectioners sugar for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 350˚. Spray a 9 x 13 pan or a bundt pan, or a 10″ pan  with 2″ sides with non stick cooking spray. Lay parchment paper on the bottom and spray again. Cream the sugar with the shortening. Add the milk, and whip. The shortening will separate and look like curdled milk. Mix in the almond and vanilla extracts and salt until well combined.