Beaten egg whites are required in many baked goods such as angel food cake and meringue. Beating egg whites is not very difficult but you can do a lot wrong if you don't know some simple tricks. That said, this video shows you how to beat egg whites properly.
- Use eggs at room temperature. It does not matter whether they're fresh or a bit older.
- Separate the egg white from the yolk perfectly. There should not be a single drop of yolk in the egg whites. Yolk is very oily and will ruin your egg whites, so will anything else that is greasy.
- If possible, use a copper bowl as it reacts with the egg whites and forms stronger bonds, making it harder to overbeat the eggs and gives you more fluffiness and volume. If you don't have a copper bowl, use some cream of tartar or powdered copper to get a similar effect.
- The bowl should be deep and be shaped like a hemisphere (no angles in the bottom).
- Beat the eggs with a whisk. Use a stirring lifting motion because you want to get air into the eggs. Do not just stir!
- Once they get fluffy stop beating them or they will liquefy (the proteins in the egg whites coagulate into clumps) and the egg whites are ruined. If this happens, you unfortunately have to start over.
- If beaten perfectly, use the stiff egg whites right away, do not let them sit.
Following these simple tricks, your egg whites will turn out stiff, fluffy, and voluminous.
