Separating Egg Whites
- Thread starter 88MPH
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
texasgirl
Master Chef
If your talking about taking the white and leaving the yolk, I break the egg in half over a bowl and very carefully, pour the yolk back and forth between both egg shell halves allowing the white to drip into the bowl.
AllenOK
Executive Chef
I just wash my hands, then crack the egg into the fingers of my right hand, catching the yolk, and separating my fingers just enough to let the white drip through while still holding the yolk.
Barbara L
Traveling Welcome Wagon
They sell egg separators, which work great, but like Allen says, clean fingers are the best way.
Barbara
Barbara
GB
Chief Eating Officer
It is actually quite easy. Give it a shot once and you will see how easy it really is88MPH said:
Barbara L
Traveling Welcome Wagon
Just watch my little egg over to the left.
<-----------------------------------
He is using his hands.
Barbara
<-----------------------------------
He is using his hands.
Barbaraurmaniac13
Executive Chef
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2005
- Messages
- 4,764
My guess is that you are living up to your nick when you break the egg, at 88pmph... it only takes a gentle tap on something hard (like the edge of the bowl) to crack an egg. if you SMASH the egg against it, it is very likely that the yolk in the middle gets shaken up and mixed up into the egg white, also it is more likely that you will get those unwanted crunchy smithereens of the shell mixed into the egg... try it very very gently, then use the technique TG has suggested...if it doesn't exactly break in half, just a bit of crack on the side, that is okay, just gently (always gently, never forcing too much) pull with your thumb at the crack to get it open, it will come apart nicely. It may take a few practice, but once you get used to it it is really a piece of cake.... it is a worthwhile trick to learn. Good luck!!
gwkr36a
Cook
Try breaking the egg into a small funnel, the white will pass thru the funnel
and the yolk will stay on top.
and the yolk will stay on top.
BigDog
Head Chef
urmaniac13 said:
That struck me as very funny today. Don't know why.
Anyways, I'm a fan of the finger method. Mrs. Big Dog has a separater she got from THe Pampered Chef that cost more then it is worth, and I don't like it. The shell to shell thing does work, but risks clipping a piece of shell into the white that then you have to go fishing for. Fishing for shells in an uncooked egg is a pain in the butt!
Finger method for me, unless someone else has a better idea!
AllenOK
Executive Chef
Not only that, but you run the risk of clipping the yolk with a bit of shell and ripping that membrane.
KAYLINDA
Head Chef
A little trick I learned somewhere...if you get a piece of shell in your whites...chase it with your empty egg shell....somehow it seems to attract to it.
Barbara L
Traveling Welcome Wagon
The first cake I ever made, when I was about 14 (a boxed spice cake) had a definite extra crunch in a few bites. I wonder why? 
Barbara
Barbara
I learned 3 different ways - but they are all similar.
Mom had an egg separator that worked pretty well. She placed it over a measuring cup, broke the egg into it, poured the yolk into one bowl and the white into another.
Grandma used 4 bowls and her fingers - she broke the egg into one bowl, poured it into her hand over the second bowl, dropped the yolk from her fingers into the yolk bowl and poured the white into the whites bowl.
My other grandmother did the shell-to-shell thing - but again separating each egg over a 3rd bowl.
I, in my infinite wisdom, decided I could skip a step and save the time and trouble of having to wash that 3rd bowl. Yep - I cracked the egg, did the shell-to-shell thing over my bowl of whites like I had several times before ... and then one fateful day the yolk of the last egg broke! My batch of whites was contaminated, ruined! IF I had separated it into a 3rd bowl first I could have just reached for another egg, and another bowl, and gone on. So, the 30-seconds I might have saved having to wash another bowl or two turned into having to stop what I was doing, change clothes, walk about 1/2 mile to the the store (DW had the car) and get another dozen eggs, come home and start all over!
No matter how you separate your eggs (separator, shell-to-shell, or with your fingers) use a 3rd bowl to isolate each egg so you don't contaminate the whole batch if you have a yolk break. And, it's also much easier to fish out a piece of broken shell from just one egg than a bowl of several.
Mom had an egg separator that worked pretty well. She placed it over a measuring cup, broke the egg into it, poured the yolk into one bowl and the white into another.
Grandma used 4 bowls and her fingers - she broke the egg into one bowl, poured it into her hand over the second bowl, dropped the yolk from her fingers into the yolk bowl and poured the white into the whites bowl.
My other grandmother did the shell-to-shell thing - but again separating each egg over a 3rd bowl.
I, in my infinite wisdom, decided I could skip a step and save the time and trouble of having to wash that 3rd bowl. Yep - I cracked the egg, did the shell-to-shell thing over my bowl of whites like I had several times before ... and then one fateful day the yolk of the last egg broke! My batch of whites was contaminated, ruined! IF I had separated it into a 3rd bowl first I could have just reached for another egg, and another bowl, and gone on. So, the 30-seconds I might have saved having to wash another bowl or two turned into having to stop what I was doing, change clothes, walk about 1/2 mile to the the store (DW had the car) and get another dozen eggs, come home and start all over!
No matter how you separate your eggs (separator, shell-to-shell, or with your fingers) use a 3rd bowl to isolate each egg so you don't contaminate the whole batch if you have a yolk break. And, it's also much easier to fish out a piece of broken shell from just one egg than a bowl of several.
BigDog
Head Chef
Experience is certaily the best teacher from the school of hard knocks!
C
cartwheelmac
Guest
I break the egg into a small bowl and then I pull the yolk out with a spoon and then I have the white and yolk seperated.
Grace
Grace
BigDog said:
LOL - like someone once said (author unknown and paraphrased I'm sure) - "I never learned too much from my successes - but I learned a heck of a lot from my failures!"
Claire
Master Chef
I always have done the shell method, but then DO NOT do shell-to-shell. Whatever whites wind up in that yolk, go with the yolk. I don't bake, so it's never a crisis. Seems in any recipe I use, having a little white in the yolk doesn't much matter. But when you need whites, you can't have any yolk. So Mom (also not a baker) taught me to break them and retain the yolk in one half. Period. We don't try to exact every bit of the white. In our recipes, the white needs to be pure, the yolk not. So it can be done in one movement.
