Poppyseed angel food cake with grapefruit curd

Name: Poppyseed angel food cake with grapefruit curd
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 8 min
Total time: 13 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: En
Ingredients: 1 cup cake flour; 1 1/2 cups superfine sugar; 12 large egg whites are room temperature; 2 table spoons lukewarm water; 1 1/4 tea spoons cream of tartar; 1/2 tea spoon salt; 2 tea spoons vanilla; 3 table spoons poppyseeds; 1 batch of grapefruit curd; 12 large egg yolks; 1 cup superfine sugar; 2 tea spoons grapefruit zest; 3/4 cup fresh squeezed grapefruit juice; 3 table spoons fresh squeezed lemon juice; 1 cup cold, unsalted butter cut into chunks.

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Dessert

Very Easy

13 min

This seems to be a pretty standard angel food cake, other than the addition of the poppyseeds, which add a nice little crunch to the pillowy slices.

Preparation

Preparation5 min

Cook time8 min

1) Poppyseed Angel Food Cake:Oven preheated to 350, be sure 10" tube pan with a removable bottom is immaculately clean and ungreased. Sift the flour and 1/2 cup of the sugar together three times. With an electric mixer fitted with the whisk, whip the egg whites with the warm water until they are foamy. Add the cream of tartar and the salt and continue to whip until the soft peak stage. Gradually begin adding the remaining 1 cup of sugar and whip until the hard peak stage. Whip in the vanilla. Once the whites are whipped, Daley suggests using your hands to incorporate the flour mixture in 4 batches so as to deflate the egg whites as little as possible and to really feel when the lumps have been combined. This is great fun, so take her suggestion, but fold with care. When the final 1/4 batch of flour is almost incorporated, add the poppyseeds and fold to combine.

Pour the batter into your waiting pan and smooth the top. Here, Daley suggests running a knife through the batter to deflate any air bubbles. I did it, so you should do it, too.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, then cool the cake still in the pan, but turned upside down. I did this by setting it in a colander and it worked just fine. Be sure the pan is totally cool before you dislodge your cake by running a knife around the perimeter.
2) Grapefruit Curd:
Make this in a double boiler, so get the water gently simmering in pot and have a sieve placed over a bowl all ready and waiting for. In the bowl of the double boiler whisk the egg yolks until they are foamy then whisk in the rest of the ingredients other than the butter. Put the bowl on top of the simmering water and stir constantly. No, seriously, constantly, don't want to end up with a bunch of cooked egg. Continue stirring until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, leaving a nice defined line finger down it. This should take anywhere from 7-10 minutes. Once thickened, pour the curd through the waiting strainer and into the bowl. Stir the butter into the warm curd a few pieces at a time until all the butter has been combined. The butter cooled the curd down to lukewarm, so at this point, simply covered it with plastic wrap so that the wrap was touching the top of the curd (to prevent a skin) and put it in the fridge. Keep it refrigerated for at least 2 hours, and up to 8.

To serve