Stories from the Lab: Better Cookies—Whole Eggs or Egg Whites? | CIA Culinary School (2024)

There are millions of ways tomake cookies. Whether it’s chocolate chip, sugar, or peanut butter fudge, thevariations and options are unlimited! Some recipes may call for honey as a replacementfor sugar, while others may include food coloring dye for a range of pigmentcolors. If, like me, you have a sweet tooth for desserts, I know you’re gettingexcited just thinking about it.

In my Culinary Science ResearchMethods class, my teammates and I experimented with a common cookie ingredientand had some cookie-making fun! This time, we tested what the effects of eggwhites have on cookies. To create cookies, you typically use whole eggs and theirproteins for flavor, leavening, structure, and color. Eggs promote puffinessand 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 isincorporated into the batter.

Substitutingingredients can make or break a recipe. Any change will affect the sensory attributes—includingthe aroma and taste—of the final product. In this experiment, we tested justthat. Do egg whites in cookies have a better likability than cookies made withwhole eggs? Let’s find out!

Tobegin, my teammates and I agreed on a cookie recipe that we adapted from theCIA’s Baking and Pastry book, whichwe used as the control. For the variation, we used the same recipe, but substitutedegg whites for the whole eggs (yolks and whites).

Ingredients Amounts

Whole Butter 213 grams

Granulated Sugar 142 grams

Light Brown Sugar 92grams

Whole Eggs (CONTROL) 85 grams

Egg Whites (VARIATION) 85 grams

Salt 5.5 grams

Vanilla Extract 4 grams

AP Flour 298 grams

Baking Soda 5 grams

For this experiment, all ingredientswere weighed and measured. The oven was set at a temperature of 165 degreesCelsius. We creamed the butter and sugar using a KitchenAid stand mixer and apaddle attachment for three minutes. Then we slowly added the eggs, along withthe vanilla, until fully incorporated. We sifted the flour, baking soda, andsalt using a Tami, and slowly added it to the stand mixer. Once the dough wasfully incorporated, we turned off the mixer and weighed the dough. Using a one-ouncescoop, we placed 40 grams of cookie dough balls on a sheet tray lined with aSilpat sheet, and baked them for 12 minutes. We then transferred the bakedcookies to another sheet tray to cool.

After baking, we analyzed the control and variation samples with aseries of tests:

• Using a penetrometer, weevaluated the density of the cookies. Penetrometers are specially equipped to measurethe tenderness of gels and baked goods with a cone tip that penetrates thesamples by gravitational force.
• We then used a caliperto measure the height of the samples, evaluating the after-bake heights of both.Calipers measure external diameters and widths of objects.
• We evaluated the pigmentprofiles of the samples with a colorimeter. The colorimeter testing showed thatcompared to the control, the variation was slightly lighter. However, the differencewas so small that it was undetectable to the human eye.

We conducted one final test to analyze the sensory attributes. Forthis, my teammates and I went to The Egg to gather data via a Triangle Testfrom CIA students and faculty members. A Tringle Test consists of a ballot withthree samples. Two of the samples are the same and one is different. Thepurpose is for the panelists to correctly identify the sample that isdifferent. Out of 30 panelists, only 12 correctly chose the right sample. Thismeans that 18 panelists could not tell the difference in flavor, texture, oraroma of the control cookie verses the variation cookie.

Interacting with other students at The Egg for sensory wasinteresting. I had my own personal opinion of the cookies but seeing andreviewing other’s perception was entertaining. We received many diversecomments in relation to the egg white cookies. Some of these comments included stiffer,lighter in taste, and crispier. One of the participants was a baking and pastrydean, and even he had a hard timefiguring out which sample was different.

All the testing experiments—height, pressure, color, and sensory—showedthat there was no difference between the control cookie with whole eggs versesthe variation cookie with only egg whites compared to a 95% confidence level. Thismeans that the flavor and appearance between the two samples were virtually thesame.

My group members and I had a blast doing this experiment. We didplenty of research beforehand, but we weren’t quite sure what the results wouldbe. One of my group members hypothesized that the egg white cookies would bedrier and chewier compared to the whole eggs but as the tests showed, they wasno significant difference. Egg whites can successfully be substituted for wholeeggs during cookie baking, and possibly with other baked goods. If you’recurious, I would suggest trying this out for yourself. You’ll be surprised to see how eggs reactduring cooking and baking applications. The cookie you think you’d prefer might not be the one you wind up liking betterafterwards!

By Majestic Lewis-Bryant