[KYHeirloomer]

Normally, if I just need the yolk of an egg I toss the white. But in the past two days I've separated more than a dozen eggs just for the yolks, for various recipes.

Is there any way to store the whites until needed? I mean long term, not just for a day or two in the fridge.

Thnx.

[georgia]

KYH, if the eggs were fresh to begin with, you should be able to keep the leftover whites about a week in the refrigerator. Whites can easily be frozen as well. If you haven't already dumped them all in a bowl together, you can drop each white into an ice cube tray and freeze them individually, store in a freezer bag, and pop out as many you need later. (Actually, I can't think of why you can just divide the bowlful of whites into the ice cube trays. Each one should equal about one eggwhite.)

They're a bit watery when thawed, so I wouldn't use them for something like an angel food cake (with no other leavening), but for recipes that need, say...2 eggs + 2 egg whites...they are fine.
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So far, so good.

[georgia]

Correction...that's "...why you CAN'T divide..."
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So far, so good.

[gingerpale]

georgia, considering how hard it is to get egg white to stop pouring once it has started, I think you were right the 1st time!

KYH, what's cookin' that needs all those yolks?

[georgia]

True! Egg white is notoriously "ploppy", isn't it?

I forgot also: freezer time, 1-2 months.
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So far, so good.

[KYHeirloomer]

Ginger, it was several recipes that just happened to call for egg yolks; 8 in a parfait alone, then one here, two there.

As to fresh, they don't come too much fresher. They were laid Thursday morning by an organic flock. Beautiful orange yolks!

[dory]

I just heard on the Splendid table radio program (I don't know what week because I podcast it now that my state's public radio system has discontinued it) that standard sized ice cube compartments--I mean the little compartment in ice cube trays intended to form one cube--is about the size of one egg white. Once all the eggs have been separated, it would be hard to put them one by one into the individual compartments. As other participants have pointed out, egg whites like to stay together in one mucousy (sorry!) glob. However, if one were separating eggs, it would be perfectly logistically possible to put the whites one by one into the little compartments. I think it would be even feasible to freeze more than one recipe's worth of egg whites in a single tray, as I doubt the whites would thaw in the time it takes to separate a couple of eggs. You would just need to put on a piece of masking tape to label the dates if you were making yolk-only recipes spread out in time.

Dory

[Gill]

For years I have stored egg whites in the deepfreeze either indivually in little containers or else in 2s(batch of meringues), 3s (for Viennese curd cake) or 4s(for Pavlova).
They might look a bit watery when they defrost but it is very easy to make a meringue mixture using an electric whisk . I have not tried to do that by hand.
I have kept them for as long as 6 months without any problem.
Gill
(Johannesburg)

[dory]

I recently had my first pavlova-- made by my brother. I love the wiggly meringue.