Those who like to mess with pastries know that for most flour (and especially rich) products, eggs are necessary. Without them, the dough will not turn out neither lush nor whole. However, many housewives are faced with the fact that in the recipe, instead of the usual eggs, the necessary dose of either a powder of them or some kind of melange is indicated in grams. And if the powder is more or less known to most culinary specialists (even though they still prefer a natural product in cooking), then the last term not only baffles, but also raises the logical question: "Actually, what is the difference between melange and egg powder?"
What does this word mean
It came into our language from French gourmets. It is translated as “mixture”, “mixing”, “combination”. The term is known more likely to those who are fond of knitting: as a result of a special way of weaving threads, beautiful and unusual things are obtained. It is also no less common in geology and chemistry - experts in these areas are not at a loss in determining its value. However, we are interested in culinary melange (egg). Why should they replace ordinary and affordable eggs? And the second curious question: "Why is it that is required in some recipes, and for some reason egg powder in others?"
The inconvenient source product
Whoever bought eggs at least once in their life (and only completely unintelligent children do not belong to this category) knows how easy it is to damage them and how difficult it is to bring them home safely. Moreover, they, unfortunately, are stored quite a bit. At night in the summer, we turned off the light - and in the morning we had an unpleasant smell in the refrigerator, as well as absolutely unsuitable for cooking products. And even in the case of proper storage, the eggs may not be of very high quality, because they could be transported under inappropriate conditions, as a result of which the protein with the yolk was mixed inside. You break an egg and instead of the necessary contents you get the same foul-smelling mass. That is why in production, where such (but fresh!) Ingredients are needed in large quantities, they prefer to use egg melange or powder from the same material. Among other things, the use of both derivatives greatly reduces the cost of the industrial baking process, since they are subject to non-standard conditions - broken, small eggs that have lost their integrity or presentation.
Technological subtleties
So what is the difference between egg melange and the same powder? First of all - the way of cooking. The initial stage is the same in both cases: "insides" are removed from the shell, which are thoroughly mixed. Then the mass passes through the filter and pasteurized. And here the differences begin. The powder is obtained by drying, and egg melange is frozen at a temperature of minus fifteen to minus twenty centigrade. Often in the process, the minimum amount of sugar or citric acid sodium salt (not more than 5%) is introduced into the mixture. This facilitates the defrosting process, but egg melange does not at all change the taste and does not lose the minerals and vitamins found in a fresh egg. In the future, it is packaged in Euro-barrels (40-60 kilograms) for industrial use or in half-kilogram tetrapacks for home use.
Advantages and disadvantages
Both egg powder and melange have their advantages over each other, but are inferior to one another in something. So, packaged powder can be stored up to two years, and egg melange - about a month. But the first is very hygroscopic, and, absorbing water, it loses flowability very quickly - lumps are formed that will have to be screened out first. At the same time, the smell also deteriorates, and the taste becomes stale. Melange does not face these problems. The main thing is to defrost it correctly. To do this, the packaging is placed for two and a half - three hours in water heated to 45 degrees.
In a word, seeing in some recipe an indication about the use of egg powder or melange, do not stew. It’s easy to buy both, and the total cost of the dish will also decrease.