What Will An Extra Egg Yolk Do To Your Chocolate Chip Cookies? - Tasting Table (2024)

FAQs

What happens if you add an extra egg yolk to cookies? ›

A cookie made with extra egg yolk (or, in this case, only egg yolk), will be lighter and chewier than a cookie made with whole eggs. The cookies will also have a richer flavor thanks to the added fat in egg yolk.

If there isn't enough egg, your batter or dough may not be able to hold its structure or could end up overly dry or dense. On the other hand, if there is too much egg, your baked goods could lose their shape due to excess liquid, or have a rubbery (or even overly cakey) texture depending on the recipe.

Too much yolk can overwhelm a dish with "eggy" flavor, and their tenderizing function weakens a cake's structure. Too much white, on the other hand, will create an awkward batter and a dry cake. Using the whole egg gives you the best of both worlds.

Recipes that use just the yolk of an egg typically do so for the yolk's fat content and emulsifying abilities. The fat gives baked goods extra-rich flavor and a velvety texture. The yolk also has the unique ability to bind liquids and fats together, creating an emulsion that prevents them from separating.

Eggs with double yolks are perfectly safe to eat. Baking with double yolk eggs can be tricky as they do affect ratios. If your baking recipe calls for egg yolks only, pay attention to yolk size. Sometimes double yolkers will have half-size yolks, so two would count as one.

Soft cookies have a water concentration of 6% or higher – moisture being the variable in texture. To make cookies crispy, add less liquid or bake it in the oven for longer to dry out the dough. Generally bake around 13-15min at 180C for a crispy cookie.

If the batter is runny enough to drip from the bowl without a spatula, you'll know you've added too much; to fix this, add 1 tablespoon of flour at a time until it reaches your recipe's ideal consistency.

Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay moist and chewy.

Adding cold eggs to that creamed mixture can influence the texture and consistency of final bake, especially when it's a batter made with the creaming method. “Cold eggs cause the butter to harden,” says Olivia McCoy, trained pastry chef and head chef of Daily Chew in Atlanta.

Eggs promote puffiness and spreading in cookies, while also holding the cookie together during baking. The height and texture of the final product is determined by how much egg is incorporated into the batter. Substituting ingredients can make or break a recipe.

What happens if you use extra large eggs in baking? ›

Whereas cookies and cakes made with small eggs can be dry, dense, and crumbly, those made with big ones can be heavy, wet, and rubbery.

Egg white has the capability to gel and is frequently used as a binding agent in many different prepared foods. Using more whites in a cake mixture will help create a fluffy, light baked product with good volume and texture; while using more yolks will create a denser baked good with a deeper, richer flavour.

Generally speaking, when recipes call for melted butter or whipped eggs, yolks produce fudgier cookies, while whites make them cakey. When recipes call for butter creamed until light and fluffy, the reverse is true: Yolks tend toward cakey cookies, while whites make them fudgey.

You can whisk 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons of water and 2 teaspoons of baking powder together to replace each egg in baked goods like cookies, brownies or quick breads. This substitution won't impact a recipes' flavor profile the way egg substitutions like mashed banana or flaxseed might.

Imparting flavor and color: Fat is flavor, and since the yolk contains virtually all of an egg's fat content, it also adds flavor to baked goods. Yolk color comes from carotenoid pigments (which come from plant materials in the hen's diet).

I came across it while paging through the new Serious Eats book - the idea is to use whole eggs plus egg yolks to make your eggs extra rich, creamy, and flavorful. A bonus, I might add, is the color the extra yolks bring to the finished preparation (particularly if you're using good, well-sourced eggs).

Whereas cookies and cakes made with small eggs can be dry, dense, and crumbly, those made with big ones can be heavy, wet, and rubbery. Some cookies could pancake, while others might turn out overly cakey. Dough that you need to roll out—like for sugar cookies—could be frustratingly wet and sticky.

There are a few things you can do if your cookie dough is too dry and crumbly. First, try adding more liquid to the dough. This could be milk, water, or even just additional eggs. If that doesn't work, you could also try melting some butter and adding it to the dough.