Community Cookbook: Make angel food cake with Carol Gallaher from Jackson

Carol Gallaher grew up in the small town of Bismarck, Mo., where everyone knew each other and roles were defined. Her mother stayed home and took care of the six children. Gallaher, a middle child, looked after the younger siblings. Her dad worked outside of the home as administrator of the local school. As a young girl, Gallaher remembers watching her grandmother create jumpers and dresses for her schooling, adding a sleeve, then a collar, each piece coming together one by one.

“My grandmother ran a tight ship,” Gallaher says. “She was a tiny little thing. Meticulous. Very domesticated and thorough with gardening, canning and quilting.”

During the school years, Gallaher participated in both 4-H and home economics, becoming well-versed in cooking and sewing. When she married soon after high school, the transition to wife and mother was a natural one. But when her husband Darrell got drafted to Vietnam just 13 months after the wedding and five weeks after the arrival of their first child, they had to adapt. She and the baby moved in with her mother-in-law during Darrell’s deployment, and when he returned a year later, they began looking for new opportunities and a better future.

It was Gallaher’s friend Margie who suggested they move to Jackson.

“Margie was 10 years older and used to babysit me,” Gallaher says. “Even when I was 5, she left an impression. [Margie] held a high standard. Kept a clean home. She was a Godly woman.”

Margie, who died in May 2024, was a lifelong friend, mentor and role model to Gallaher. Even as their families grew and life circumstances changed, they remained connected. She was the one who encouraged Gallaher to get her family in church and the one who taught her how to make the perfect angel food cake, sharing the secret is in sifting the cake flour and powdered sugar exactly three times.

“I’ve tried not doing it this way,” Gallaher says, “but it doesn’t turn out as well. I’ll be honest. It’s kind of a pain. But you’ll never see [an angel food cake] as tall as this.”

Gallaher recommends using farm-fresh eggs that have never been refrigerated when making the angel food cake, because the egg yolks are thicker and richer. And while she doesn’t have chickens of her own, she is thankful for her friends who do. Having made the recipe more than 20 times, it’s failed only once, when the underbaked cake collapsed as it cooled upside-down on the table. Gallaher dumped it in a bowl and served it, anyway.

Over the years, Gallaher has added her own special touch to the angel food cake recipe. Her favorite is a homemade blueberry sauce, using blueberries hand-picked from Michigan. Her husband, Darrell, enjoys the cake with ice cream or topped with his favorite food: peanut butter.

Gallaher, who still lives in the same home they bought in 1976, hosts Sunday dinners for her grown children and grandchildren. On each person’s birthday, she cooks them a favorite meal and dessert.

Three summers ago, she began teaching girls from her church how to sew. And each month, she cooks meals for friends as they gather to quilt in her home. No matter the occasion, Gallaher’s favorite part of any gathering is the fellowship around the table.

“Margie was right about moving to Jackson. And she was right about getting your family in church,” says Gallaher, who has attended Cape Bible Chapel now for 45 years. “[Ours] was a relationship from the Lord — beginning, middle and end.”

Angel Food Cake

Ingredients

1 cup cake flour, sifted

1½ cups powdered sugar (measure after sifting)

1½ cups egg whites (about 12 large eggs)

1½ teaspoons cream of tartar

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon almond extract

1½ teaspoons vanilla

Sift cake flour and powdered sugar together three times. Beat egg whites, salt and cream of tartar until foamy. Add two tablespoons sugar until all is used.

Mixture will be stiff. Add vanilla and almond extract. Mix flour mixture ¼ cup at a time, folding in gently. Sift flour in. Pour into an ungreased angel food cake pan.

Bake at 375 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool upside down. Remove carefully.

Glaze

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter

½ teaspoon vanilla

1/8 cup milk

Mix and add powdered sugar to desired consistency.

Blueberry Sauce

Ingredients

3 cups blueberries

2/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/4 cup water

Boil ingredients and then reduce heat to a full simmer for 20 minutes until the sauce is thick.