Do you really have to 'fold' egg foams? Can't you just mix them?

***ANGEL FOOD CAKE RECIPE***

5 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar (or a squeeze of lemon juice)
3/4 cup (175g) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (60g) flour (cake flour, ideally)
salt
vanilla (or some other extract)

Bake this in a narrow pan — one big loaf pan, or two smaller ones would be good. Line the pan entirely with parchment paper before you start on the batter. Get the oven heating to 350ºF/180ºC.

Put the cream of tartar in the egg whites and beat to stiff peaks. Gradually beat in the sugar until the foam is stiff again. Beat in a pinch of salt and a splash of vanilla. Beat in the flour until the mixture is just homogenous — no longer.

Scrape into the pan and bake until a skewer to the center comes out clean — about an hour, but it'll depend on the dimensions of your pan. Let cool thoroughly before taking it out of the pan and peeling off the parchment paper.

A serrated knife is good for slicing. I like eating it plain, but you could top it with whipped cream, berries, and/or the crème diplomate recipe below.

***CREME DIPLOMAT RECIPE***

4 egg yolks
3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1/4 cup (30g) cornstarch
3 cups (700mL) milk
2 oz (60g) butter
1 pint (500mL) cream
salt
vanilla

[FYI, some people use gelatin to further thicken this — I think it's great without it]

This will make a pretty big bowl of stuff, but it's tasty AF.

Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, flour, cornstarch, a pinch of salt and a splash of vanilla with just enough of the milk to make a very thick paste — it's easier to whisk lumps out of thick pastes. When you have it pretty smooth, whisk in the rest of the milk. Bring the mixture to a boil, whisking constantly — it'll seem like nothing is happening, and then all of a sudden it'll thicken.

When it's thickened and bubbling, take it off the heat and whisk in the butter. You now have pastry cream. Let it cool completely. While you're waiting, whip the cream. When the pastry cream is cold, whip it into the cream until just homogenous, no longer. You could just eat this like pudding, or dip berries in it, or use it as a spread for the angel food cake, or pour it inside the chocolate soufflé recipe below.

***CHOCOLATE SOUFFLE RECIPE***

3 eggs
2 oz (60g) butter (plus a little more for buttering the ramekins)
4 oz (113g) chocolate bar, as dark as you want it
3 tablespoons (40g) granulated sugar
cream of tartar
salt
vanilla

This will only make two soufflés, but multiply as needed. Start by buttering the inside of two ramekins, and maybe dust the sides with sugar if you're into that. Get the oven heating to 400ºF/200ºC.

Separate the eggs, reserving the yolks. Put a pinch of cream of tartar in with the whites and beat to stiff peaks. Beat in the sugar until you have a stiff meringue.

Heat the chocolate and butter until they just melt smooth. Remove from the heat and whisk in the egg yolks, a pinch of salt and a splash of vanilla. Whisk that into the meringue until just homogenous, no more.

Put the batter into the ramekins, smooth off the tops and do the thumb trick you see in the video at 7:13, I don't know how to describe it here. Bake until they're puffing up a lot but they're still a little jiggly if you tap the ramekins, maybe 15 minutes.

Eat soon after you take them out of the oven — soufflés start falling immediately as they cool. Maybe pierce a hole in the center with your spoon and pour in some of the cremé diplomat recipe above.

[muhammadmousa]

I think part of why folding is recommended is because overmixing definitely IS a concern for a lot of these recipes, and folding simply makes it harder to overmix, or at least keeps the overmixing to a minimum. A couple of extra folds probably isn’t going to ruin your dessert, but a couple of extra seconds of full-speed egg beater action might.

[axmoylotl]

i think folding feels more tender and loving which makes you feel like you're putting more care into the food thus making it better

[tekashiii]

Ive watched some videos of a Japanese pastry chefs doing those Japanese jiggly desserts and she would always say folding is not necessary she would always remind her viewers how shes a professional baker and knows what shes doing cus someone would always attack her about it.

[backtocooking]

As a “very schooled (cuisine and) pastry chef” I can say… I absolutely love your content! I learned a lot of myths in culinarily school and in the restaurants I work in. You learn more technique, speed and efficiency as a chef. You can learn more theory and variety as a home cook. It takes time to question these things and test side by side and most chefs don’t have a free minute. Thanks for your content Adam!

[joerococo]

The pastry chef of the Culinary institute I went to always maintained this idea. He taught us to just use a whisk slowly and stop once it looks combined. Never folding anything ever again.

[hardlyb]

When I used to make a sponge cake almost every week, I tried 'not folding', but I found it hard to avoid over-mixing (I can be absent-minded at times), so I went back to folding. But when I didn't space out, I couldn't tell the difference either.

[MoobsOfGoodEats]

My guess is that folding is a technique that was preached to "idiot-proof" some parts of recipes since there's always gonna be someone to ruin things. I remember in highschool chemistry class doing titrations where you're supposed to drip solutions drop by drop and there was always someone who full sent it

[ethanspira]

I actually love folding; I think the act is soothing, the texture is so satisfying, and it makes me feel like a real pastry chef.

[iainhansen]

This channel is truly the spiritual successor to good eats. Using science and experiments to give home cooks practical and scientific knowledge about our cooking.

[erisdiscordia]

"It's easier to whisk lumps out of a paste when it's really thick" is your catch phrase now. I heard it in two videos back to back.

[llLorenzoll]

I always thought the folding thing was a way to ensure novice cooks wouldn't destroy what used to be a lot of hard work beating eggs into stiff peaks by accidentally undoing it, so they were told to fold it to be safe.

I always just use gentle stirring or very small bursts of the mixer on low. That way it gets well mixed fast without damaging the eggs.

[qBtz]

me with a goatee is probably saying: "this folding technique isn't far off from what the traditional mixing technique makes but if you want to waste more seconds from your ever decreasing life time then yeah use it. Long live the empire."

[Decentsauce]

Did the same once for Adam's macaron recipe when I felt a bit lazy and they turned out better than any of the ones I made before. Haven't folded since.

[justanotherjessica]

My husband's grandma still considers angel food cake to be a diet dessert. We did a low carb diet a couple years back and we told her ahead of time that we didn't want her to make any dessert when we came to visit because we were doing a low carb diet. She made an angel food cake for dessert and said she made it special for us since we were on a diet.

[AlmostWatchable]

I'll generally only fold in berries, chocolate chips, and other last-ingredients with a tendency to run. I only do this for presentation purposes when serving people who wouldn't want purple pancakes or whatever.

Also, Creme Diplomat is the best cake frosting in the world. There's a really fast way to make it with instant pudding mix and it's amazing on any kind of cake.

[potapotapotapotapotapota]

I always found that folding worked better because pulling the peaks up through the flour made it so that flour sticks to the peaks and any excess flour falls off the sides in a very gentle way. It's why they recommend folding through only a little bit of dry ingredients at a time because too much flour is too heavy for folding and will pop all the air out of the peaks.

[gemofamara]

I do wonder how much of a difference folding would make compared to whisking by hand, because the technique obviously predates electric tools. Perhaps the process of mixing with an electric tool itself generates air bubbles that go some way to equalising what you're losing?

[sasjadevries]

I found folding to be neccesary when making the modern Russian "variant" of Charlotte cake (Шарлотка), i.e. sponge-cake with yolks and apples.
So at first I was actually using the mixer to add flour into the whipped eggs (containing both yolks&whites), but I wasn't getting the fluff-level I was hoping for. Because the mix was kinda getting clumpy, I was forced to mix longer than you'd want just to get it clump free; and I simply refuse to use baking soda to "fix it". But when I found the folding technique and tried it out, it made a huge difference.
With this recipe it's important to not open the oven too soon (like when you want to check for readiness), otherwise you'll lose a lot of fluff and diminish any gains from the folding.

[booyawooya]

I'd personally like to see the difference without an electric beater. I think the power of the electric beater continues to aerate the dessert which I think could reduce or cancel out the deflation. Perhaps you'd see more of a difference between gently folding and more vigorous/careless stirring with a spoon or spatula.

[joebykaeby]

The sentence “this ain’t rocket science, it’s cake” pretty much undoes about a century’s worth of baker’s wisdom, and yet, it proves true time and time again. I don’t fold, I don’t sift, I don’t do a true autolyze rest (only the half-assed kind), I don’t preheat, I melt chocolate in the microwave, and I could go on - and yet I manage to make excellent baked goods, mostly by accident.