A note about eggs

Its unusual these days to get a bad egg, but when adding to other ingredients its not worth the risk of wasting them so always crack each egg first into a cup and pour separately into the other ingredients.

Eggs should ideally be stored in a cool place and not a refrigerator.

You get the best results using the freshest eggs, but its still acceptable to use eggs that are not perfectly fresh. Really stale eggs should be avoided because bacteria could have penetrated the porous shell.


Tests to determine whether an egg is stale:

• break it into a cup. The more watery the egg white seems [rather than gloopy] the more stale it is.
• crack the egg onto a plate. The yolk should 'stand proud' and be surrounded by gloopy white. The more the egg white spreads over the plate, the more stale it is.
• look at the inside the shell. There's an air-pocket between shell and skin-like membrane. If the air-pocket is small, the egg's fresh; if large, its stale.
• place the uncracked egg into a small bowl of water. If the egg sinks to the bottom its fresh. If it floats to the surface its stale. If it floats up from the bottom but does not break the surface of the water its reasonably fresh.

The science: Eggshells are porous. As the egg ages air gets through the porous shell and the air pocket between shell and skin-like membrane increases. As the air pocket increases, so it makes the egg more likely to float in water.