My motivation was simple — Mom. A longtime vegan, she has lived without her (and my) favorite cake for decades. But she recently started eating egg whites again, which put angel food back on the table. Except she isn’t eating sugar and is trying to limit carbohydrates.

Angel food cake has three primary ingredients — egg whites, sugar and flour. Egg whites and sugar are whipped until they form a thick, airy batter, then flour is gently folded in. Could I make a cake with only one of the key ingredients?

From the start, structure was the challenge. Using egg whites and the natural sugar alternative known as stevia, I was able to bake up cakes with the proper taste. And they would rise beautifully in the oven. But as soon as they came out, they wilted into near puddles of cooked dough.

To get the structure I needed, I turned to two ingredients popular in gluten free baking — guar gum and xanthan gum. Most baked goods get their lift and structure by working the gluten (a type of protein) in wheat flour until it forms bonds that trap air. People who avoid gluten need to find a way around this, so they use other ingredients to replicate those bonds.

The cake still needed dry ingredients, and for that I turned to more egg whites. A blend of powdered egg whites and egg- or whey-based protein powder was a good start. A bit of almond flour completed the dry mix, giving the cake a bit of extra body.

This cake is easy to love because it is fast and simple to make, is delicious and is great for dieters. It makes a standard size angel food cake, but has just 133 calories, 3.5 grams of fat, 23 grams of protein and 2.75 grams of carbohydrates per quarter of the cake. That’s right. Per quarter of the cake.

A couple things to keep in mind:

— Traditional angel food cake is made from a very delicate batter. This is why the flour is gently folded into the whipped egg whites by hand. The batter in this version is much sturdier and easily stands up to using the mixer to add the dry ingredients at the end.

— Whey or egg white protein powders are widely available in the grocer’s natural foods or protein bar sections. Look for a brand that doesn’t contain sugar. We used Biochem’s 100 Percent Whey Protein vanilla powder.

— Powdered egg whites are exactly what they sound like. They are sold in the baking aisle.

— The recipe was written to be gluten-free. If you aren’t avoiding gluten, it also can be made substituting 1/4 cup cake flour for the 1/4 cup almond flour called for.

— Want to make a chocolate version? Substitute 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder for the 1/8 cup powdered egg whites called for.