Melange egg - a great product!

Those who like to bother with baking know that for most flour (and especially so much) products, eggs are always needed. Without them, the dough will not turn out either lush or solid. However, many housewives are faced with the fact that the recipe instead of the usual eggs is indicated in grams of the necessary dose of either powder from them, or some kind of melange. And if the powder is more or less known to the majority of cooks (even if they prefer still the natural product in cooking), the latter term not only confounds, but also raises a natural question: "Actually, what is the difference between melange and egg powder?"

What does this word mean?

It came into our language from French gourmets. Translated as "mixture", "mixing", "combination". The term is best known to those who are fond of knitting: as a result of a special way of weaving threads, beautiful and unusual things turn out. It is no less common in geology and chemistry - specialists in these fields do not find difficulty in determining its significance. However, we are interested in culinary melange (egg). Why should they replace the usual and all available eggs? And the second curious question: "Why do some recipes require it, and some for some reason egg powder?"

Than the initial product is inconvenient

Whoever has ever bought eggs in his life (and this is not the category of completely unintentional children), he knows how easy it is to damage them and how difficult it is to carry them home. Moreover, they, unfortunately, are kept very little. At night, the lights were turned off - and in the morning we have an unpleasant smell in the refrigerator, as well as absolutely unsuitable for cooking products. And even in case of proper storage, eggs may not be of high quality, because they could be transported under improper conditions, as a result of which the protein with yolk was mixed. You break an egg - and instead of the necessary contents you get all the same bad-smelling mass. That is why in production, where such (but fresh!) Ingredients are needed in large quantities, they prefer to use an egg melange or powder of the same material. Among other things, the use of both derivatives makes the industrial baking process much cheaper, since it creates unconditioned production - broken, small eggs that have lost integrity or presentation.

Technological subtleties

So what does the egg mélange differ from the same powder? First of all - the way of cooking. The initial stage is the same in both cases: the "insides" are extracted from the shell, which are thoroughly mixed. Then the mass passes through the filter and is pasteurized. But here the differences begin. The powder is obtained by drying, and the egg melange is frozen at a temperature from minus fifteen to minus twenty Celsius. Often in the process, the minimum amount of sugar or citric acid sodium salt is injected into the mixture (not more than 5%). This facilitates the defrosting process, but the egg melange does not change the taste and does not lose the minerals and vitamins present in the fresh egg. In the future, it is packaged on eurobags (40-60 kilos) for industrial use or for tetrapaks for half a kilo for home use.

Advantages and disadvantages

Both egg powder and melange have their advantages to each other, but in some ways they are inferior. So, the packaged powder can be stored for up to two years, and egg melange - about a month. But the first is very hygroscopic, and, absorbing water, very quickly loses its flowability - lumps are formed, which must first be screened out. At the same time, the smell also deteriorates, and the taste becomes stale. Melanzhu these problems do not threaten. The main thing is to defrost it properly. For this purpose, the packaging is placed for two and a half to three hours in water heated to 45 degrees.

In a word, seeing in some recipe an instruction about the use of egg powder or melange, do not exaggerate. Buy and then, and more is not difficult, but the total cost of the dish will also decrease.