The Reason You Should Beat Eggs And Sugar Together First When Making Brownies - The Daily Meal (2024)

FAQs

How long should you beat eggs and sugar for brownies? ›

With an electric mixer on maximum speed, whisk the eggs and sugar. They will look thick and creamy, like a milk shake. This can take 3-8 minutes, depending on how powerful your mixer is. You'll know it's ready when the mixture becomes really pale and about double its original volume.

The goal in beating eggs and sugar is to incorporate plenty of air into the mixture for a light and fluffy cake.

Sugar doesn't actually “cook” eggs the same way heat does but rather changes the chemical structure of the protein in the eggs. When eggs (especially yolks) and sugar sit too long without being mixed, the water in the yolks is absorbed by the sugar and you end up with a hard, clumpy mess.

Fudgy brownies have a higher fat-to-flour ratio than cakey ones. So add more fat—in this case, butter and chocolate. A cakey batch has more flour and relies on baking powder for leavening. The amount of sugar and eggs does not change whether you're going fudgy or cakey.

The eggs and sugar should be beaten just enough to break up the eggs and slightly dissolve the sugar. You can do this by hand just with a fork. You don't need to whisk the eggs and sugar until they have increased in volume, as this can add too much air into the brownies and make them too cake-like.

For example: Beat the eggs and yolks together with sugar for a total of 5 minutes or until the mixture becomes thick, fluffy, and triples in volume.

When you beat egg whites, you're basically mixing air into them. The protein in the egg whites forms a kind of skin around the bubbles of air. If there's any fat present, the skin can't form, and the air leaks away. Even a trace of fat is ruinous.

Adding in sugar has many benefits. Sugar pulls the water from the structure and allows it to hold its shape better; egg whites beaten without sugar will not peak as firmly as those with.

If a recipe includes a lot of acid such as lemon juice and buttermilk and isn't lifted with enough baking powder, the cake will taste dense. In that case, you may need the addition of baking soda which will react with the acid and create a fluffier crumb.

For the eggs and sugar to fluff up, you either need a beater machine/mixer or use the double boiler method. Beating them using a whisk by hand will take a lot of time and not even give you the desired results.

What is the beating method in baking? ›

Beating your ingredients means mixing them vigorously to combine and incorporate air, much like the creaming method. Some recipes will call for beaten eggs, or will ask you to beat wet and dry ingredients together. For example, this is the process for mixing egg whites and sugar together when making meringue.

If you want a fudgy chocolate brownie, use melted butter. For cakey brownies, beating softened butter and sugar together to create air pockets will make your brownies lighter and cakier.

One change is to use milk or heavy cream instead of water. This change will make brownies more moist and gooey since milk is more fatty and flavorful than water. A second change is to use butter instead of oil. For similar reasons to using milk, butter adds a rich and more decadent quality to the batter.

Brownie textures fall into three general camps… Cakey, fudgy and chewy. Cakey brownies, like the name implies, are light, moist and airy, with a slightly fluffy, cake-like interior. Fudgy brownies are moist, dense and gooey, with almost the texture of fudge, but not quite as compact.

Simply beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form (tips stand straight). This will take 4 to 5 minutes total.

Start adding the sugar in a steady stream while beating. Slowly does it best since the sugar will incorporate better into the yolks. Keep beating at medium or med-high speed, or by hand, for about 3 minutes or until the mixture turns pale in colour and gains volume.

Stirring the eggs in a circle proved close to useless, taking me a full 12 minutes to create a stiff foam. Side-to-side whisking was far more effective, requiring just 5 minutes of whisking. However, beating with a looping motion proved the speediest, producing tall, pillowy mounds in only 4 minutes.

Beat eggs and sugar with an electric mixer on high speed for about 7-8 minutes or until mixture has thickened and turned a very pale yellow. Mixture will fall in ribbons from a spoon.