When it comes to baking treats like cakes, brownies, and cookies, one of the trickiest parts of any recipe is often cracking the eggs without getting little bits of the shell in the batter or dough.
However, a professional baker and bakery owner with a huge social media presence has revealed her top tip for cracking eggs smoothly.
Bakery owner Brooki, known to her 2 million TikTok followers as @brookibakehouse, explained that in order to make sure there are no shells in your eggs, you should crack one shell onto another egg.
This will stop the shell from fragmenting – which often results in having to fish the pieces out of your mixing bowl. Brooki shared another egg tip for when a recipe calls for room-temperature eggs.
If your eggs were being stored in the fridge, you can bring their temperature down by placing them in a bowl of warm water for ten minutes. However, you need to ensure the water isn’t too hot.
Another baking tip from the influencer and recipe-book author includes using an ice cream scoop to portion cupcakes. This means you will get the same-sized cupcakes every time and they will all be uniform in size and shape.
She also recommends chilling cookie dough in the fridge overnight before baking, if you want to make big, chunky cookies that don’t lose their shape. “I can confirm, it is worth the wait,” Brooki told followers.
Brooki has three bakeries in Australia and a booming website on which customers can order cookies to be delivered to their doorsteps. She also has a range of merchandise – from oven mitts to keyrings – and offers online classes and recipes.
When making sponge cakes, make sure to beat the eggs together in a jug first before adding to the butter and sugar mixture gradually and whisking between additions, British Lion Eggs explains.
It also suggests adding a spoonful of the weighed flour and beating until smooth, if the mixture looks like it may curdle.
But where should you store your eggs? The egg brand says that you want to keep your eggs at a steady temperature below 20C, so it is vital to avoid moving them too often between hot and cold temperatures.
They can be kept in a cool pantry, but a regular kitchen cupboard can experience changes in temperatures when you’re cooking – so it is best to store your eggs in the fridge. “That way the temperature is always at a constant and your eggs will be fresher,” British Lion Eggs advises.
If you want to freeze your eggs, make sure to beat them together before playing in the freezer, and do not freeze a shelled egg. Yolks can become glutinous when frozen, but this can be avoided by adding in half a teaspoon of salt or sugar for each mixed egg.