How to Get Yolks Out of Your Whites

Ok, so for the longest time, I've been taught by the chefs and cooks on cooking shows that it is absolutely imperative that when you are separating the egg yolks from the whites that you get no yolk in the whites. The fat from the yolks will prevent - should you wish to whip up your whites for a meringue or something - from whipping up. It's like - well if you get any yolks in your whites you might as well start over.

That's just what I've been taught. So you would imagine my surprise when in the bakery when I was taking out multiple bowls to separate my yolks from my whites - one bowl for the whites, one for the yolks, and one bowl for the immediate egg I was working with to make sure I didn't break the yolk into the whites before pouring the contents of that bowl into my other two egg containers - that I was told to not do that because it wastes time and bowls.

So here's what I learned that may save whoever is reading this a ton of anxiety should the inevitable happen.

1. Egg shells sink to the bottom of bowls (it sort of floats first, but give it some time, it actually sinks to the bottom). I think about this phenomenon now and think it may not benefit the home cook as much as a pastry chef who usually has her ingredients weighed out first, and then gets to them maybe an hour later - hence, time for the egg shells to sink. But I mean, if you're ever cracking eggs in large batches, know that you don't need to go fishing for eggshells should one enter the pool of eggs. You do have to remember to pour the eggs in slowly especially towards the end where the shells will be.
2. This is the big one. If you get yolks into your whites, life is not over. It's a weird phenomenon that I sort of want to look up, but first off, egg yolks float, which makes what I'm about to tell you to do, a lot easier. If you take a half of an eggshell from the ones you've already cracked and just skim the egg yolk out, the little bits of yolk just magically fall in. I mean, you'll get a little bit of whites in the process, but what I had thought would happen would be that eggs just sort of stick to themselves in that gelatin-like state and that little bits wouldn't just go into an eggshell. Well, I was wrong and this little bit of discovery made me excited for several days. We were making an italian buttercream the day after with all the whites and everything whipped up fine - so this is tried and tested!

So there you go. I was definitely way excited to share this tip and discovery with you all. I know it may not pertain to certain small quantities people's use, but if you're ever cracking 48 eggs or needing to separate 36 yolks from its whites, this trick works.