Freeze those egg whites!

I always cringed a little every time I saw an egg white slide down the kitchen sink into the drain. I have a couple recipes I use fairly regularly that call for egg yolks only, and I really don't like just letting the whites go to waste. I remember Alton Brown telling me that I could freeze an egg white in an ice cube tray, pop it out once frozen, and store it in a zip lock bag in the freezer to use whenever I needed an egg white or two...or twelve. It was an interesting concept, so I gave it a try.

As I was making a batch of mayonnaise, I separating the yolk from the albumen, and put the aforementioned albumen in a section of an ice cube tray. Once it was frozen, I couldn't get it to release from the tray, so I just left it and put subsequent egg whites in the tray as well. I think I should have put plastic wrap in the tray first in order to get the frozen egg white out more easily. Nevertheless, I decided to just wait until I accumulated twelve egg whites so I could make an angel food cake.

Since I don't really use just egg whites for anything other than angel food cake, I figured this method would work just fine. As it turned out, twelve egg whites pretty much filled the entire ice cube tray.

When I was ready to make the angel food cake, I simply placed the egg whites in the refrigerator and waited for them to thaw. I was nervous to see how they looked when they thawed, and was relieved to find that they looked like regular egg whites. My next bout of nervousness came when it was time to whip the egg whites into a foam. Would I get the volume I needed by using the frozen egg whites? Would I be able to achieve medium peaks?

Yes! The once frozen egg whites performed marvelously and I ended up with a perfectly delicious angel food cake. In my opinion, homemade and from scratch is the only way to go with this delicate dessert.

I've continued to keep egg whites in my freezer and am thrilled when I get a full ice cube tray because I know an angel food cake is soon to follow.

By the way, I use Alton Brown's angel food cake recipe. You can find it here. Notice that is yet another application in which you can use cream of tartar.