Baking with Eggs: Understanding the Role of Egg Yolks and Whole Eggs in Baking

When it comes to baking, eggs are one of the most versatile and essential ingredients in many recipes. Egg yolks, in particular, play a crucial role in adding richness and creaminess to baked goods. On the other hand, whole eggs provide structure, binding properties, and can even help create a softer and more tender crumb texture.

Egg Yolks: The Richness and Creaminess

Egg yolks are made up almost entirely of fat, with a little bit of protein in there too. They're the good stuff, providing richness and creaminess to baked goods. When it comes to making a custard or glaze, egg yolks are essential. We can make a simple creme on glaze by heating up milk, cream, sugar, and salt, then tempering the egg yolks with this mixture. Tempering is done to bring the egg yolks closer to the temperature of the milk and cream, preventing scrambled eggs or a gritty clumpy texture.

To temper, we start by heating up the milk because if we add the egg yolks directly into this pot that more direct heat can risk scrambling the eggs. Instead, we slowly combine the egg yolks with the hot liquid, whisking constantly as we go. This process helps to coagulate the proteins in the egg yolks, resulting in a silky and velvety texture.

Whipping Egg Yolks: Creating Air and Volume

When it comes to whipping egg yolks, they're truly amazing for their ability to capture air and increase in volume. The first step is to whip them at a slightly lower speed, which helps to loosen and break up some of the strands of protein that will result in an even fuller meringue later. As we whisk, large white bubbles start to form on the surface of the mixture, but the lower part of the bowl still looks like egg whites.

Next, we raise the speed to high and start adding sugar gradually. This helps to incorporate air into the mixture, creating a light and fluffy texture. We continue whipping until our egg yolks reach the desired peak - soft peak, medium peak, or stiff peak. Soft peak falls over when you lift the beater out, while medium peak holds its shape but with a little bit of curve. Stiff peak holds its shape perfectly, without any give.

Using Egg Whites: Trapping Air and Creating Structure

Once our egg whites have reached their desired volume, they can be used on their own or incorporated into other recipes. They're perfect for making meringues, which are great as a finishing element for pies or cakes, or as the base of recipes like meringue cookies. Egg whites also serve as a physical leavener in recipes like cakes, cookies, and muffins. The air bubbles trapped inside the egg whites will linger and then become trapped inside the batter or dough, giving baked goods their light and fluffy texture.

Angel Food Cake: A Great Example of Using Egg Whites

One great example of using whole eggs is angel food cake. Made with only egg whites as a leavener, this cake is incredibly light and fluffy. The air bubbles trapped inside the egg whites provide structure and give the cake its signature texture. This shows just how effective egg whites can be in baking, creating a tender crumb texture and a beautiful, airy structure.

Using Whole Eggs: Structure, Binding, and Texture

Whole eggs, on the other hand, play multiple roles in baking. They help create structure by providing protein and moisture to baked goods. Whole eggs also serve as a binding agent, helping to hold ingredients together. Additionally, they can affect the internal texture of baked goods, creating a softer and more tender crumb. When used in recipes like chocolate chip cookies, whole eggs result in soft, chewy cookies with a beautiful structure.

In contrast, using no eggs in a recipe like cookie dough results in firm and crumbly cookies that lack the same external texture as those made with eggs. This shows just how much of an impact whole eggs can have on the final product.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eneggs are one of my favorite ingredients and they are incredibly versatile but when it comes to baking with eggs there are several properties of them that you need to know to get to your best baked goods yet i'm erin jean mcdowell and here's everything you need to know about baking with eggs one of the most common questions i'm asked about eggs is does it matter if i use brown eggs or white eggs and actually the color of the shell only has to do with the breed of chicken that it came from so it doesn't do anything to affect the nutritional value flavor or the interior look of any of the eggs so beyond the color of the shell there are different sizes of eggs and this is really important what i have here are medium eggs large eggs extra large eggs jumbo the size of the egg is determined by its weight so one of the reasons this is important is that if a recipe calls for say large eggs and you only have extra large eggs in your house you can still use those extra large eggs you're just going to need to enlist the help of a kitchen scale so of course every recipe is going to be different but as a recipe developer i only develop recipes using large eggs so a large egg is two ounces per egg so if i wanted to replace a large egg with a jumbo or extra large egg i would crack the extra large egg into a bowl i'm going to whisk it up because i want to combine the egg yolk and the egg white because you don't want to just add by weight and only add the egg white when the recipe is calling for a whole large egg so once i've combined it then what we will do is we'll grab another bowl and we're going to weigh out two ounces and there we are proceed with your recipe using just the amount of a large egg the safest way to store your eggs and keep them fresh for the longest period of time is in the refrigerator but when you're baking most recipes are going to call for eggs at room temperature if you forget to take your eggs out 30 minutes to an hour before you're making your recipe there's an easy easy fix i've got right here a bowl of warm water and when i say warm i mean it's just warm to the touch when i dip my finger in it and i'm going to add however many eggs i need for my recipe into the warm water and let them sit for a few minutes the temperature of the water is going to kind of ambiently bring the whole egg to room temperature so that they are not cold when you add it into the mixer if you do add cold eggs into a recipe that calls for room temperature eggs you can risk breaking the mixture so this is what a broken batter looks like yeah and it can result in a really unfortunate textural issue and also a whole host of potential baking issues when this item gets to the oven so by using ingredients that are all at the same temperature you're gonna have more consistent baking results and you're gonna have the ideal texture of the batter or dough when you're mixing it inside each egg there are two main components the white and the yolk and a lot of baking recipes are going to have you separate them and only use the yolk only use the white or use them both but use them separately and that's because the components of the egg yolk and white are composed very differently and so sometimes they need to be treated differently in recipes to get that effect you can see the difference between them when you crack the egg and separate it and i'm going to show you two different ways to separate one is just using the shell just gently toss the yolk back and forth until all of the white comes out and then you can put the yolk in its own bowl the other way to separate an egg is a little bit more gentle it's using your hands now you can see on this egg yolk actually one of the other pieces of the egg this is called the collaza this is a little twisted piece of membrane that attaches the yolk to the inside of the shell it tends to stay with the whites when you separate eggs so some recipes actually call for you to strain the egg whites and this is why this piece will never really fully go away it's not a problem it's totally edible but if you're looking for something really silky smooth like a custard they might suggest straining this out that little membrane the other part of an egg that is worth talking about is actually inside the shell and it is this little pocket of air right here can you see that now that pocket of air is worth noting because the size of that pocket is going to change as the egg becomes less fresh so when the egg is very fresh that pocket of air is very small when the egg becomes less fresh and it's been sitting for several weeks that pocket of air is going to become bigger and bigger and bigger let's talk a little bit about these separate pieces of the egg the white and the yolk the egg white is made up almost entirely of protein and because of that it has this incredible ability to whip up so hugely beyond its original volume up to eight times its original volume egg yolks on the other hand are made up almost entirely of fat they do have a little bit of protein in there too but they're they're the good stuff and the richness the creaminess that's coming from the egg yolk what we're going to do is we're going to make a creme on glaze this is a really simple custard that really beautifully demonstrates exactly how you should manipulate egg yolks in a situation like this we're going to start by heating up some milk and cream sugar and salt i'm also going to add a vanilla bean and we're going to bring that to a simmer and what we're doing is we're starting the process by heating up the milk because if we try to add the egg yolks directly into this pot that more direct heat can risk scrambling the eggs we can actually end up with kind of a gritty clumpy texture so what we're going to do is a process that's called tempering tempering is done to sort of bring the egg yolks closer to the temperature of the milk and cream aka tempering then when we start mixing it it will slowly thicken if we thicken it too quickly the proteins will coagulate and that's what gives us that sort of scrambled egg clumpier texture we don't want that we want to coagulate those proteins really really slowly so that we end up with this silky velvety texture once you've whisked in some of that hot liquid into the egg yolks it's time to return them to the pan you want your pot on really low heat when you do this and you're going to whisk constantly as you add because again we're trying to kind of gradually combine these two and we want to cook this until it coats the back of the spatula thickly but not so much that it comes to a boil the whites are truly amazing for their ability to capture air and increase in volume the first thing that happens when you're whisking the eggs is if you start by whipping them at a slightly lower speed that helps to loosen and break up some of those strands of protein that is going to result in an even fuller more voluminous meringue later so that's the first step after whipping your eggs for a little while it's going to start to have large white bubbles on the surface but the lower part of the mixer bowl is still going to look like egg whites so now i'm going to raise the speed up now that i've loosened them up they've gotten a little foamy i'm going to raise it to high and i'm going to start adding the sugar gradually so now at this stage we're going to whip our egg whites to the desired peak soft peak sort of falls over when you lift the beater out medium peak sort of holds its shape but with a little bit of curve and stiff peak holds its shape perfectly stiff peak once your egg whites have reached their appropriate volume they can be used on their own that can be a meringue that can be a finishing element for pies or it can even be the base of a recipe like meringue cookies but it can also be used as a physical leavener in recipes like cakes cookies muffins all sorts of stuff the air bubbles that are trapped inside of the egg whites are going to linger and then become trapped inside of the batter or dough that you're mixing a great example of this is angel food cake i made this angel food cake using egg whites and that is the only leavener in this recipe there's no baking soda no baking powder it's just egg whites and all that air that was trapped into there gives this cake it's light fluffy texture so what role do whole eggs play in recipes they can help create structure they can help bind a recipe they can affect the internal texture creating a softer more tender crumb structure and of course they can also trap air as in the creaming method that we were showing earlier in that creaming method i was making a recipe for chocolate chip cookies and we've got those chocolate chip cookies in front of me now i've got two versions one made without any egg and one made with egg this is the same recipe and it's a great example of how the whole egg affects this recipe our cookies that are baked with eggs are very soft very tender they have a really beautiful structure and they just sort of fall apart they've got that little bit of chew all of that comes from the egg over here on the other hand we have our no egg cookies and they are quite firm and are just a bit crumblier you can see they don't have the same external texture the whole batter didn't come together in the same way that the batter for our cookies with eggs did there you have it everything you needed to know about baking with eggs youeggs are one of my favorite ingredients and they are incredibly versatile but when it comes to baking with eggs there are several properties of them that you need to know to get to your best baked goods yet i'm erin jean mcdowell and here's everything you need to know about baking with eggs one of the most common questions i'm asked about eggs is does it matter if i use brown eggs or white eggs and actually the color of the shell only has to do with the breed of chicken that it came from so it doesn't do anything to affect the nutritional value flavor or the interior look of any of the eggs so beyond the color of the shell there are different sizes of eggs and this is really important what i have here are medium eggs large eggs extra large eggs jumbo the size of the egg is determined by its weight so one of the reasons this is important is that if a recipe calls for say large eggs and you only have extra large eggs in your house you can still use those extra large eggs you're just going to need to enlist the help of a kitchen scale so of course every recipe is going to be different but as a recipe developer i only develop recipes using large eggs so a large egg is two ounces per egg so if i wanted to replace a large egg with a jumbo or extra large egg i would crack the extra large egg into a bowl i'm going to whisk it up because i want to combine the egg yolk and the egg white because you don't want to just add by weight and only add the egg white when the recipe is calling for a whole large egg so once i've combined it then what we will do is we'll grab another bowl and we're going to weigh out two ounces and there we are proceed with your recipe using just the amount of a large egg the safest way to store your eggs and keep them fresh for the longest period of time is in the refrigerator but when you're baking most recipes are going to call for eggs at room temperature if you forget to take your eggs out 30 minutes to an hour before you're making your recipe there's an easy easy fix i've got right here a bowl of warm water and when i say warm i mean it's just warm to the touch when i dip my finger in it and i'm going to add however many eggs i need for my recipe into the warm water and let them sit for a few minutes the temperature of the water is going to kind of ambiently bring the whole egg to room temperature so that they are not cold when you add it into the mixer if you do add cold eggs into a recipe that calls for room temperature eggs you can risk breaking the mixture so this is what a broken batter looks like yeah and it can result in a really unfortunate textural issue and also a whole host of potential baking issues when this item gets to the oven so by using ingredients that are all at the same temperature you're gonna have more consistent baking results and you're gonna have the ideal texture of the batter or dough when you're mixing it inside each egg there are two main components the white and the yolk and a lot of baking recipes are going to have you separate them and only use the yolk only use the white or use them both but use them separately and that's because the components of the egg yolk and white are composed very differently and so sometimes they need to be treated differently in recipes to get that effect you can see the difference between them when you crack the egg and separate it and i'm going to show you two different ways to separate one is just using the shell just gently toss the yolk back and forth until all of the white comes out and then you can put the yolk in its own bowl the other way to separate an egg is a little bit more gentle it's using your hands now you can see on this egg yolk actually one of the other pieces of the egg this is called the collaza this is a little twisted piece of membrane that attaches the yolk to the inside of the shell it tends to stay with the whites when you separate eggs so some recipes actually call for you to strain the egg whites and this is why this piece will never really fully go away it's not a problem it's totally edible but if you're looking for something really silky smooth like a custard they might suggest straining this out that little membrane the other part of an egg that is worth talking about is actually inside the shell and it is this little pocket of air right here can you see that now that pocket of air is worth noting because the size of that pocket is going to change as the egg becomes less fresh so when the egg is very fresh that pocket of air is very small when the egg becomes less fresh and it's been sitting for several weeks that pocket of air is going to become bigger and bigger and bigger let's talk a little bit about these separate pieces of the egg the white and the yolk the egg white is made up almost entirely of protein and because of that it has this incredible ability to whip up so hugely beyond its original volume up to eight times its original volume egg yolks on the other hand are made up almost entirely of fat they do have a little bit of protein in there too but they're they're the good stuff and the richness the creaminess that's coming from the egg yolk what we're going to do is we're going to make a creme on glaze this is a really simple custard that really beautifully demonstrates exactly how you should manipulate egg yolks in a situation like this we're going to start by heating up some milk and cream sugar and salt i'm also going to add a vanilla bean and we're going to bring that to a simmer and what we're doing is we're starting the process by heating up the milk because if we try to add the egg yolks directly into this pot that more direct heat can risk scrambling the eggs we can actually end up with kind of a gritty clumpy texture so what we're going to do is a process that's called tempering tempering is done to sort of bring the egg yolks closer to the temperature of the milk and cream aka tempering then when we start mixing it it will slowly thicken if we thicken it too quickly the proteins will coagulate and that's what gives us that sort of scrambled egg clumpier texture we don't want that we want to coagulate those proteins really really slowly so that we end up with this silky velvety texture once you've whisked in some of that hot liquid into the egg yolks it's time to return them to the pan you want your pot on really low heat when you do this and you're going to whisk constantly as you add because again we're trying to kind of gradually combine these two and we want to cook this until it coats the back of the spatula thickly but not so much that it comes to a boil the whites are truly amazing for their ability to capture air and increase in volume the first thing that happens when you're whisking the eggs is if you start by whipping them at a slightly lower speed that helps to loosen and break up some of those strands of protein that is going to result in an even fuller more voluminous meringue later so that's the first step after whipping your eggs for a little while it's going to start to have large white bubbles on the surface but the lower part of the mixer bowl is still going to look like egg whites so now i'm going to raise the speed up now that i've loosened them up they've gotten a little foamy i'm going to raise it to high and i'm going to start adding the sugar gradually so now at this stage we're going to whip our egg whites to the desired peak soft peak sort of falls over when you lift the beater out medium peak sort of holds its shape but with a little bit of curve and stiff peak holds its shape perfectly stiff peak once your egg whites have reached their appropriate volume they can be used on their own that can be a meringue that can be a finishing element for pies or it can even be the base of a recipe like meringue cookies but it can also be used as a physical leavener in recipes like cakes cookies muffins all sorts of stuff the air bubbles that are trapped inside of the egg whites are going to linger and then become trapped inside of the batter or dough that you're mixing a great example of this is angel food cake i made this angel food cake using egg whites and that is the only leavener in this recipe there's no baking soda no baking powder it's just egg whites and all that air that was trapped into there gives this cake it's light fluffy texture so what role do whole eggs play in recipes they can help create structure they can help bind a recipe they can affect the internal texture creating a softer more tender crumb structure and of course they can also trap air as in the creaming method that we were showing earlier in that creaming method i was making a recipe for chocolate chip cookies and we've got those chocolate chip cookies in front of me now i've got two versions one made without any egg and one made with egg this is the same recipe and it's a great example of how the whole egg affects this recipe our cookies that are baked with eggs are very soft very tender they have a really beautiful structure and they just sort of fall apart they've got that little bit of chew all of that comes from the egg over here on the other hand we have our no egg cookies and they are quite firm and are just a bit crumblier you can see they don't have the same external texture the whole batter didn't come together in the same way that the batter for our cookies with eggs did there you have it everything you needed to know about baking with eggs you\n"