Why are eggs essential to every baking recipe?

In almost every single dessert recipe you can find on the internet, eggs will always be one of the listed ingredients. They make the batter light and fluffy so that once the batter is heated, the dough will rise successfully. Another role of eggs in a cake/cookie recipe is to hold the dough together so that all the ingredients don't fall apart. Now that you know the purpose of the eggs in a recipe, lets move on to what really happens when you heat up an egg, and why the egg is so versatile. 

A large part of what happens in an egg when we cook it is what happens to the proteins in the egg. In the raw egg, each individual protein is coiled up. These proteins have very weak chemical bonds and once you heat them up, they begin to denature and uncoil. New chemical bonds are formed as a result of this but these bonds connect one protein to another rather than binding the protein to itself. Because of these new bonds, the proteins in the egg will stick together instead of falling apart. This is why an egg helps dough stick together! 

Fluffing up the egg is another role that eggs play in baking, such as the meringue. Instead of focusing on the whole egg, lets zoom in on the small amino acids that make up the egg white. When you beat the egg whites to make a meringue, you are incorporating air bubbles into the mixture. Just like when you heat eggs up, adding air bubbles also unfolds the proteins. Egg whites are made up of both hydrophilic (water loving) and hydrophobic amino acids. When the protein is still coiled up, the hydrophilic amino acids are facing out and the hydrophobic amino acids are in the center. However, once the egg whites are beat, the amino acids will be separated, and air bubbles will be up against the them. The amino acids will be separated because once exposed to the air bubbles, the protein will uncoil so that the hydrophobic parts can stick into the air, and the hydrophilic parts can stay in the water. Just like when heated, the now uncoiled proteins form new chemical bonds with each other, creating a vast network of bonds. 

When egg whites are cooked/baked, the air bubbles will will evaporate, but the proteins still retain their shape. Now once you take your dessert out of the oven, you can enjoy the tiny holes left behind by the air bubbles which makes your dessert fluffy!! 

After you've read this article, you might feel inspired to use this versatile ingredient in your food! 

Stay tuned for next month's article which will be about the egg yolk! A part of the egg that is very different from the egg white, and is used in very different scenerios. Egg yolks are used in salad dressings, custards, and creme brulée. They are filled with different types of fatty acids while also being rich in nutrients. 

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