Dear Heloise: As a child, I watched all of the effort, and egg whites, that it took my mom to make her beautiful angel food cake. She baked it, then would grab a glass soda bottle to invert the pan onto while it cooled. Note: She let it cool, sliced it in half, filled the layer and the entire cake with chocolate-chip-flavored cream, and then put it in the fridge. It was wonderful.

Today, a packaged angel food cake mix can be mixed in 2 minutes and bakes beautifully, but it still has to be inverted as soon as it is taken out of the oven, and then cooled.

I take 4 soup spoons, lay them face-side-down on my cake dish at the degrees 12, 3, 6 and 9 would be on a clock, and then invert the angel food pan onto it. It works beautifully. Once it is cool, it is easy to loosen with a knife or spatula and release it from the pan. — Nancy Lukunich, Simi Valley, California