beating egg whites--stiff vs. soft
Can anyone give me a primer on how long to beat egg whites so they have soft peaks and how long to beat for stiff peaks? I am always perplexed by this. I tried using an electric hand mixer and nothing happened. When I switched to my stand mixer, it worked. How did people beat before stand mixers were invented? Thanks.
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My guess is that when you used your electric hand mixer, the mixer blades and/or mixing bowl had traces of oil which inhibits the formation of egg white meringue.
You can still beat egg whites manually, just like two hundred years ago. It just takes some effort.
Remember: stand mixers for household use are only about 50-60 years old and electric household appliances are maybe about 100 years old (and took a while to be adopted).
Even today in the 21st century, there are people beating egg whites, kneading bread dough, milling flour by hand.
There are machines that can pick crops or you can walk out to your garden and gently twist off the perfectly ripe tomato.
It's up to you to decide how much manual effort you want to put in.
Maybe you can walk out into your garden and gently twist of a perfectly vine-ripened tomato, but I can't. Keep in mind that for many people a garden and hand-milled heritage grains are privileges and it's not simply about how much effort they want to put in.
The vast majority of households on this planet do not have a stand mixer.
Heck, I have all the ability and resources to acquire all of the latest and greatest consumer household kitchen appliances and yet I still knead pasta dough by hand.
It's a personal choice and I'm simply answering the original poster's inquiry: people (especially ordinary household cooks) have gotten by for centuries without electric appliances.
It's how you use a tool (or don't use a tool) that is the most important.
Such you can use every single automated machine to crank out your dinner, or you can roll up your sleeves and do it by hand.
You can see some of this dichotomy is both high end and low end restaurants.
Machine tools may often be more convenient, but they aren't necessarily better.