How to Make Stiffly Beaten Egg Whites
Stiffly beaten egg whites are a fairly common ingredient in many baking recipes. Depending on their intended use, you may end up incorporating the egg whites into another mixture, such as in a souffle. In other cases, the egg whites might stand alone or as an individual part of another dish --- examples include meringue cookies and lemon meringue pies. Whatever your use for stiffly beaten egg whites, be sure to beat them properly. Failure to do so can lead to collapsed or dense cakes, weepy lemon meringue pies and other culinary disasters. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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Wash your bowl, mixer attachments and anything else that will come into contact with the egg whites thoroughly with hot water and soap. Any grease remaining on these items will ruin your egg whites, so it is important to make sure they are completely clean. Use a copper bowl if possible. Glass also works well. Avoid wooden and aluminum bowls.
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Crack one egg and separate it so that the whites fall into a small bowl or cup. Discard or set aside the yolk and shells. Pour the egg whites from the small bowl or cup into your larger, preferably copper, bowl. Repeat this process for each egg. This will help ensure that you do not accidentally contaminate the whites with yolk. You can simply discard the single white in the small bowl or cup if some of the egg yolk drips into it, rather than needing to discard all of the egg whites you have separated so far. Allow the egg whites to warm to room temperature if they are cold.
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Beat the egg whites with your electric mixer at moderate speed until they become foamy. At this point, increase the speed to medium-high and continue beating. Stop the mixer when the egg whites appear to be consistently fluffy, and lift it out of the whites. Soft peaks should form at this stage. This means the egg whites should follow the mixer up as you lift it out, but the resulting peaks should topple over or melt back into the egg whites in the bowl.
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Increase the mixer speed to high when your egg whites reach the soft peaks stage. Continue beating, turning off the beater and checking every 15 to 30 seconds, until the peaks formed by lifting the beater out remain stiff rather than falling over or melting. At this point, you have achieved firm peaks. Use the beaten egg whites immediately to prevent them from losing their fluffiness.
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References
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