If you have some seasoning in the kitchen, then you know just how high, creamy and fluffy eggs and egg whites can rise when whipped in copper cookware bowls. If you’ve ever tried whipping eggs or egg whites in glass or stainless steel bowls, then you know that the results are never quite as good as with copper cookware bowls. Also, it’s much harder to overbeat egg whites in copper cookware bowls, compared with the glass/steel varieties. I’d always wondered how copper cookware bowls performed these amazing feats.

Recently, I came across some information that explains this amazing phenomenon. Everyone knows what happens when you overbeat egg whites (this happens usually when I make my husband beat the eggs, lol!). They lose their fluffiness and foaminess, and basically form lumps, and droop back down into the bowl. I’ve heard this is also called “denaturing” the protein, that is, the egg proteins themselves come undone. As more and more air is whipped into the whites, the proteins unwind more and more, becoming so stringy that they start to form teeny weeny clumps! Then you end up with a lumpy mess that goes straight into the garbage.

How then, does copper magically prevent overbeating? When you beat egg whites in an unlined copper cookware bowl, a little bit of the copper comes off from the sides. The copper combines with some of the protein in the eggs, to form a complex. This combination of copper and egg protein makes it harder for the egg whites to become overbeaten.

The end result is amazingly high risin', creamy and fluffy egg whites!

Also, check out how my friend used her copper cookware frying pan during her camping trip to Banff.

Kristalla Minusev