With the warmer months now upon us, fresh eggs are more and more abundant!

The hens are now laying on overdrive, supplying us with tons of nutritious eggs everyday!

A fresh egg is still at its peak of nutrition. Fresh eggs make splendid cakes, custards, scrambled eggs, quiches, the list goes on…

But- have you ever tried boiling fresh eggs?

The eggshells always stick!

Boiling fresh backyard eggs for me, personally, has always been a huge challenge! I’ve tried it all; adding baking soda to the water, adding baking powder to the water, having the eggs dunked in an ice bath immediately after boiling, etc! Each time, I ended up getting so frustrated with eggshells sticking and tearing the eggs, that the entire batch ended up going to the dogs.

Why doesn’t this happen with store-bought eggs?

They always peel perfectly.

People have long thought it was the age of the egg that made peeling effortless. The older the egg, the easier to peel.

Completely by accident, I discovered this is not always the case!

The answer is COLD, not old!

 

Put your fresh eggs into the fridge!

 

Leave the eggs you want to boil in the fridge for a few hours; overnight would be even more preferable.

Put them carefully into boiling water straight out of the fridge. Boil for 10 minutes. Take the pot off the eye for 5 minutes, then put them in a bowl of ice cold water.

Peel and be amazed!

 

When an egg is new and freshly laid, it has a relatively high acid content. This acidic environment keeps the albumen, or egg white, stuck firmly to the shell membrane. Store-bought eggs are washed prior to refrigeration. This washing removes the protective bloom barrier of the shell, thus allowing air to pass in and out of the shell’s porous surface. This results in a decreased acidity level, therefore loosening the albumen from the shell membrane. This explains why store-bought boiled eggs peel better, but it still seems to work for fresh eggs that have been chilled.

I do not wash my eggs before putting them in the fridge, but it still works!

 

Although it isn’t the PERFECT method for getting easy to peel eggs every time, it certainly works for MOST of the fresh eggs! Try it, I guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised with this simple trick!

 

Another interesting bit of information I have noticed with my hens is that some particular hens’ eggs easy always easier to peel than another. One of my Midnight Majesty Marans, Goldie, lays a deliciously beautiful dark brown egg, but it never fails that her egg will be hard to peel. On the other hand, I have an Easter egger, Fantail, who lays a blue egg, and it is always so easy to peel!

There is probably more science out there to be discovered on this topic, but for now, put your eggs in the fridge!

They will peel much easier I promise!