Today’s baking tip, it’s going to revolve around this. The whole egg, and specifically, the best way to separate its two parts, the white and the yolk.
Now in baking, there are lot of recipes that need either side of the egg, the yolk or the white. For instance Kamberley, it’s a custard and custards are essentially made up of egg yolks. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of making a Soufflé, Soufflés get their lightness from whipped egg whites. So my point is that, in a pastry kitchen, a lot of eggs get cracked and a lot of eggs get separated. There’s lots of gizmos out there on how to separate eggs. For instance, have you ever seen, it’s this little wire basket, you can crack the egg in it. The egg yolk stays put in that little basket and the egg white drips down.
Ok, we are all guilty of this. Cracking an egg using the two halves of the egg to go back and forth, back and forth, keeping the yolk in the egg shell and letting the white drip down. Perfectly fine but let’s be honest. Sometimes you get egg yolk in your egg white, and if you have a recipe that you’re using just egg whites, you can’t let that happen.
I have a question for you. Each time you crack an egg, think about it, how many times has the yolk itself broken? And if you’re honest about it, not many. And it’s that premise that I’m going to go on. I’m going to crack eggs into this dish, whole eggs, and separate them using my hands, the best tools there are, the way that we did with the egg shell. And it’s because the egg yolk has a membrane around it so it stays intact so more often than you’ll ever think. So it’s a perfectly safe way to do it. And you’re going to see. It’s just the easiest way to do it.
Another tip, we’ve all been taught to crack an egg on the side of a bowl. When you do that, it’s the opportunity to crack into the yolk, to break the yolk. So instead of doing that, hit it on the counter. Look at that, absolutely perfect. The yolk is totally intact. The egg white, oh, another thing, the best way to have your eggs when you’re going to separate them, room temperature because you can see the egg white is nice and viscous.
I’m going to crack another one. Onto the table and there we go. The way that we used the two egg halves, the shells, that’s why I’m going to use my hands. Now I don’t think I need to say this but I’m going to say it anyway. Please make sure your hands are clean. So I’m going to scoop out the egg yolk and let the egg white drip through my fingers. Forget all those items your mother told you not to play with your food. This is fun.
So there you have it. The easiest, most effective, most efficient way to separate whole eggs.