How to Separate an Egg

It has to be said that eggs are a truly amazing ingredient. They are made up of two parts with completely different properties that are useful both on their own or together depending upon the recipe you are making.

So knowing this, how do you go about separating the yolk from the white without too much pain and making a big mess? Well it’s a fairly simple process; you don’t need any special equipment, just a couple of bowls and clean hands.

The first step is to gently crack the egg. You should aim to do this as close to the centre of the egg as you can. Then while working over a bowl that will catch the egg white, hold the egg at about a 60 degree angle gently tease open the crack in the egg. The idea is to allow the egg white to flow out into the bowl while making sure the yolk remains in the bottom half of the shell.

The first step will liberate the majority of the egg white. To get the rest of the white out the next stage is to transfer the yolk to the other half of the shell, again allow the white to flow out into the bowl while you make the transfer.

Depending on how fresh your eggs are, you may find that on separating the egg that there is a long string of white that doesn’t want to let go of the shell. If this happens, I’ve found the easiest way to get it into the bowl is to just tidy it up using your fingers.

That’s it; all that’s left to do is to gentle pour the remaining egg yolk into a separate bowl and start cooking.

For some examples of recipes that use separated egg yolks you can look at these pages.
Royal Liqueur Chocolate Ice Cream
Fresh Mayonnaise
Custard
Chocolate Cake
How to make Aioli

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