Of Cake and Eggs
Getting
the perfectly whipped egg white has never been easy
I am usually happy to support the
food restrictions of my friends. Vegetarians are easy because Indian vegetarian
food is so great and varied and is mostly what I cook at home. Lactose
intolerance helped me discover non-dairy milks like the luscious cashew milk I
wrote about in this column recently. Gluten allergies are the best excuse to
cook with millets and pseudo-cereals like buck wheat and quinoa.
But there is one restriction I struggle with and that is an aversion to eggs. Specifically, I have problems with the whole field of ‘eggless’ cakes and puddings. I accept, of course, that people may have good reasons not to eat eggs, but then why not stick to desserts never made with eggs, like most of our great Indian mithai? Why try to make desserts like cakes where eggs are literally of foundational importance?
Eggless cakes are big business in Mumbai, but I’ve never tried one I really like. Some manage to taste OK by drowning the basic cake in icing and toppings, but this is really cheating. Eggless cakes have a basic stodginess to them that is really hard to overcome because eggs perform vital roles in cakes. They add moistness and richness, but also aerate the cake because of the amazing ability of egg white proteins when beaten to form masses of bubbly foam – and then to set solid when heated in the oven, creating the elastic lattice that sustains the lightness of cakes.
Harold McGee, the food science expert, explains it almost poetically: “Thanks to egg whites we are able to harvest the air.” It was an ability that Europeans first really explored during the Renaissance, enabling the creation of cakes. Prior to this cakes were really sweet breads, raised by yeast, or dense chewy baked sweets like the panforte still made in Italy. But the discovery of what beaten eggs could do lead to the creation of a new kind of sweet that was light, spongy and rich, without the slight stodginess that yeast raised cakes always have. And in addition to cakes there were other light dishes like soufflés and meringues that could be made with whipped egg whites.
There was only one downside – whipping egg whites by hand is terribly tiring. You do it once and think its fun and good exercise for your forearm and wrist, but soon they start aching and the frothy mass in the bowl is still slopping around, not forming the stiff white peaks that are needed. You start to wonder if there’s anything that could make it easier, starting with what you are using to do the beating. The basic balloon whisk is still probably the best manual tool for this and according to Bee Wilson in Consider The Fork, her fascinating new history of the utensils we use to cook and eat, it may date back to the 16th century, but remained oddly rare in home kitchens till relatively recently.
One reason might be that the usual alternative was so cheap: a bunch of twigs tied together. Wilson notes that they had the added benefit of being able to flavour the whites, for example by using peach tree twigs for a fruity flavour. But apart from this, the downside was simply that twigs didn’t do the job that well and, I imagine, were always breaking pieces into the eggs. Another technique was to use two forks held together, but again this took ages. The job was so hard that a mythology grew around it, like the eggs had to be beaten in one direction only, or in a copper bowl. Copper does seem to be able to stabilize egg foams a bit, but most other myths are wrong – all that is needed is to beat the eggs enough.
And this was the real secret of making cakes – it was easy when there were enough servants for all this wearisome work. Beaten egg dishes were made possible by immense amounts of hard work by kitchen servants. Unfortunately, it was just as kitchen staff was becoming harder to find in the late 19th century, particularly in the USA, that cakes were becoming more popular than ever. Some new tools were needed, either for the woman of the house to use, or as a way to get the one cook or kitchen helper she still had to agree to make cakes.
The result was an explosion of egg focused inventing in the US. “What tulips were to Holland in the 1630s and Internet startups were to Seattle in the 1990s, eggbeaters were to the East Coast of the United States in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. Between 1856 and 1920, no fewer than 692 separate patents were granted for eggbeaters,” writes Wilson. Unfortunately, most of them crashed as fast as Internet startups, never really working well.
The one exception was the design patented by Turner Williams on May 31st, 1870. This involves two interlocking beaters that are spun by rotating a wheel. I grew up using one of these to froth up eggs for scrambled eggs, but I have to admit that while I still own one, I haven’t used it in ages. The problem is that while it certainly feels like it’s doing a good job, as you crank the wheel and the eggs froth up, it also needs both hands, so you can’t hold on to the bowl, which can then easily slip and spill the eggs (been there!).In any case, as Wilson notes, it doesn’t beat whites fast enough to cut the pain.
The truth is that no manual beater is ever going to make it easy. Real ease with egg-beating would only come with electricity. Wilson’s book talks about the revolution wrought by electric mixers like the massive KitchenAid mixers in the US or Kenwood ones in the UK, and then the lighter Cuisinart that was adapted from a French design, and as a sidelight she also mentions the utility of single-stick immersion blenders. All these are useful and important if one often makes cakes, especially fruitcakes with their denser batter, lumpy with nuts and fruits. My mother does, and when her Kenwood broke down after 40 years she nearly went into mourning, but luckily I was able to find a sleek new (and very expensive) modern replacement.
What Wilson doesn’t mention though is the humbler hand-held electric blender that I use, not having the space to store one of those massive machines in a cramped Mumbai kitchen. My hand blender has the interlocking whisks of the rotary machine, but is able to go far faster at the push of a button. I still remember when my aunt in the US sent me one, since they were not available in India at that time. It was wonderful to hold it in one hand and feel it whirr into life, and before you realised it, the egg whites were white and forming peaks below your hand.
Being hand-held meant you could move it around the bowl, to places where eggs or batter hadn’t mixed properly. You had all the tactile sensation of making a cake (which the larger machines, where you just load the bowl, don’t give you), without any of the wristbreaking effort. These machines are now cheap and easily available in India and I can safely say that, after an oven, they are the most essential piece of equipment you need to get if you want to make cakes, soufflés or any other dish which involves a lot of beating of a liquid or batter. When I think of all those centuries of weary wrists in the kitchen, a device as simple as this easily counts as a luxury.
It even helps with eggless cakes. Almost the only eggless recipe I’ve found to be decent is one devised by my friend Uma that involves much whisking of khoya, condensed milk and melted butter till you get a batter that makes a somewhat light cake, at least when its hot out of the oven (as it cools it gets more solid and heavy). Of course, all that khoya and condensed milk gives it a delicious mithai taste, which makes me wonder all over again why, if people insist on spurning the wonders of well-beaten eggs, they can’t just stick to the joys of mithai.
Vikram Doctor ———CDET121221
But there is one restriction I struggle with and that is an aversion to eggs. Specifically, I have problems with the whole field of ‘eggless’ cakes and puddings. I accept, of course, that people may have good reasons not to eat eggs, but then why not stick to desserts never made with eggs, like most of our great Indian mithai? Why try to make desserts like cakes where eggs are literally of foundational importance?
Eggless cakes are big business in Mumbai, but I’ve never tried one I really like. Some manage to taste OK by drowning the basic cake in icing and toppings, but this is really cheating. Eggless cakes have a basic stodginess to them that is really hard to overcome because eggs perform vital roles in cakes. They add moistness and richness, but also aerate the cake because of the amazing ability of egg white proteins when beaten to form masses of bubbly foam – and then to set solid when heated in the oven, creating the elastic lattice that sustains the lightness of cakes.
Harold McGee, the food science expert, explains it almost poetically: “Thanks to egg whites we are able to harvest the air.” It was an ability that Europeans first really explored during the Renaissance, enabling the creation of cakes. Prior to this cakes were really sweet breads, raised by yeast, or dense chewy baked sweets like the panforte still made in Italy. But the discovery of what beaten eggs could do lead to the creation of a new kind of sweet that was light, spongy and rich, without the slight stodginess that yeast raised cakes always have. And in addition to cakes there were other light dishes like soufflés and meringues that could be made with whipped egg whites.
There was only one downside – whipping egg whites by hand is terribly tiring. You do it once and think its fun and good exercise for your forearm and wrist, but soon they start aching and the frothy mass in the bowl is still slopping around, not forming the stiff white peaks that are needed. You start to wonder if there’s anything that could make it easier, starting with what you are using to do the beating. The basic balloon whisk is still probably the best manual tool for this and according to Bee Wilson in Consider The Fork, her fascinating new history of the utensils we use to cook and eat, it may date back to the 16th century, but remained oddly rare in home kitchens till relatively recently.
One reason might be that the usual alternative was so cheap: a bunch of twigs tied together. Wilson notes that they had the added benefit of being able to flavour the whites, for example by using peach tree twigs for a fruity flavour. But apart from this, the downside was simply that twigs didn’t do the job that well and, I imagine, were always breaking pieces into the eggs. Another technique was to use two forks held together, but again this took ages. The job was so hard that a mythology grew around it, like the eggs had to be beaten in one direction only, or in a copper bowl. Copper does seem to be able to stabilize egg foams a bit, but most other myths are wrong – all that is needed is to beat the eggs enough.
And this was the real secret of making cakes – it was easy when there were enough servants for all this wearisome work. Beaten egg dishes were made possible by immense amounts of hard work by kitchen servants. Unfortunately, it was just as kitchen staff was becoming harder to find in the late 19th century, particularly in the USA, that cakes were becoming more popular than ever. Some new tools were needed, either for the woman of the house to use, or as a way to get the one cook or kitchen helper she still had to agree to make cakes.
The result was an explosion of egg focused inventing in the US. “What tulips were to Holland in the 1630s and Internet startups were to Seattle in the 1990s, eggbeaters were to the East Coast of the United States in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. Between 1856 and 1920, no fewer than 692 separate patents were granted for eggbeaters,” writes Wilson. Unfortunately, most of them crashed as fast as Internet startups, never really working well.
The one exception was the design patented by Turner Williams on May 31st, 1870. This involves two interlocking beaters that are spun by rotating a wheel. I grew up using one of these to froth up eggs for scrambled eggs, but I have to admit that while I still own one, I haven’t used it in ages. The problem is that while it certainly feels like it’s doing a good job, as you crank the wheel and the eggs froth up, it also needs both hands, so you can’t hold on to the bowl, which can then easily slip and spill the eggs (been there!).In any case, as Wilson notes, it doesn’t beat whites fast enough to cut the pain.
The truth is that no manual beater is ever going to make it easy. Real ease with egg-beating would only come with electricity. Wilson’s book talks about the revolution wrought by electric mixers like the massive KitchenAid mixers in the US or Kenwood ones in the UK, and then the lighter Cuisinart that was adapted from a French design, and as a sidelight she also mentions the utility of single-stick immersion blenders. All these are useful and important if one often makes cakes, especially fruitcakes with their denser batter, lumpy with nuts and fruits. My mother does, and when her Kenwood broke down after 40 years she nearly went into mourning, but luckily I was able to find a sleek new (and very expensive) modern replacement.
What Wilson doesn’t mention though is the humbler hand-held electric blender that I use, not having the space to store one of those massive machines in a cramped Mumbai kitchen. My hand blender has the interlocking whisks of the rotary machine, but is able to go far faster at the push of a button. I still remember when my aunt in the US sent me one, since they were not available in India at that time. It was wonderful to hold it in one hand and feel it whirr into life, and before you realised it, the egg whites were white and forming peaks below your hand.
Being hand-held meant you could move it around the bowl, to places where eggs or batter hadn’t mixed properly. You had all the tactile sensation of making a cake (which the larger machines, where you just load the bowl, don’t give you), without any of the wristbreaking effort. These machines are now cheap and easily available in India and I can safely say that, after an oven, they are the most essential piece of equipment you need to get if you want to make cakes, soufflés or any other dish which involves a lot of beating of a liquid or batter. When I think of all those centuries of weary wrists in the kitchen, a device as simple as this easily counts as a luxury.
It even helps with eggless cakes. Almost the only eggless recipe I’ve found to be decent is one devised by my friend Uma that involves much whisking of khoya, condensed milk and melted butter till you get a batter that makes a somewhat light cake, at least when its hot out of the oven (as it cools it gets more solid and heavy). Of course, all that khoya and condensed milk gives it a delicious mithai taste, which makes me wonder all over again why, if people insist on spurning the wonders of well-beaten eggs, they can’t just stick to the joys of mithai.
Vikram Doctor ———CDET121221
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