The trick to preparing angel food cake is to whip the egg whites into an airy meringue and then fold in the remaining dry ingredients without flattening the perfectly stiff peaks.

Anyone who has whipped egg whites knows how easy it is for the stiff peaks to fall flat, especially if you fold in any additional ingredients after forming them.

Fortunately, using the cream of tartar speeds up how quickly egg whites stiffen and stabilize a meringue's air pockets by preventing the proteins from sticking together.

Neither creamy nor part of tartar sauce, cream of tartar is a powdery byproduct of the fermentation process that turns grapes into wine and is particularly useful in baking.

When incorporating with your angel food cake, use about ⅛ of a teaspoon per egg white. Note that adding too much cream of tartar can make your cake taste more metallic than sweet.