Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Egg Essentials
Some of my favorite cakes are flourless, but there is not a single eggless one in my repertoire! Eggs are essential for the texture I desire. The egg whites offer aeration, and the egg yolks, which contain lecithin, improve emulsification, creaminess, and flavor. Here is the most important and useful information I have to offer about baking with eggs.
I make cakes with whole eggs, all yolks, or all whites, but recently, I’ve started separating the eggs for whole egg cakes, weighing the yolks and whites, and then recombining them. This is due to the shrinking of the yolks. I noticed this when making a génoise, which uses whole eggs. Suddenly, the texture of the cake was coarse! When I added an extra yolk, the texture was once again velvety fine. Many other bakers have noticed the shrinking of egg yolks as well. It wasn’t until I spoke to a woman who raised hens for eggs that I discovered the reason. She said that in the industry, they are using younger hens, whose eggs have smaller yolks.
Smaller yolks mean larger whites, which is also distressing to me because I consider one of my most important contributions to baking to be how to prevent egg whites from being overbeaten, and this is dependent upon the right ratio of whites to cream of tartar (a by-product of the wine industry). Most recipes warn when beating whites not to overbeat them or they will break down, become dry, and deflate. I discovered that if ⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar is used for each egg white/30 grams/2 tablespoons, it’s virtually impossible to overbeat the whites! But if the yolk is smaller, then the amount of white will be larger, so it becomes necessary to weigh or measure it.
It is also of equal importance to know that when beating egg whites, the bowl and beater must be free of any trace of fat, including egg yolk. If a tiny speck of yolk gets into the whites, it can be removed using the eggshell, which works like a magnet to suck it up. To ensure that the bowl is completely clean after washing and drying it, you can wipe your bowl and beater with a cloth dipped in white vinegar.
In my cookbooks, I list recipes containing all yolks and those containing all whites because so often in baking, one has an excess of one or the other. Of course, the extra yolk can be incorporated into scrambled eggs or an omelet, but freezing is also an excellent solution. Egg whites can be frozen for many months, but egg yolks will become gummy unless some sugar is added—½ teaspoon per yolk is the ideal amount. Be sure to mark down the amount on the container so it can be subtracted from the recipe!
For those concerned with food safety if you are making an uncooked meringue, the American Egg Board recommends using pasteurized eggs in the shell. If using the pasteurized egg whites, you will need double the cream of tartar (¼ teaspoon per 1 egg white/30 grams/2 tablespoons). You will also need to beat them for much longer (about 10 minutes), but they result in the most stable meringue possible!
Find Rose on Instagram at @realbakingwithrose and at realbakingwithrose.com.
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