Freezing egg whites
Since getting the ice cream maker attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer in January, I have been making sure that the freezer stays stocked with a container of ice cream. All of the ice creams that I have made so far have involved using a lot of egg yolks. Not wanting to waste the egg whites, I found myself frantically trying to come up with stuff to make that used up all of these egg whites. I baked a lot of angel food cupcakes at first. But then I read somewhere that you can freeze egg whites and then just thaw them when you need to use them. Each egg white takes up one compartment in an ice cube tray.
The next time I had an overflow of egg whites, I dispersed them among the compartments of my ice cube tray and put it in the freezer. I read that once they are frozen, you should remove them from the tray put them in a plastic baggy for long-term storage in the freezer. So once my egg whites were frozen, I found it impossible to get them out of the tray! I bent and slammed the tray, trying to get them out, but they wouldn’t budge. I tried dipping the bottom of the tray in hot water, and that didn’t work either. Then I tried digging them out with a sharp knife… didn’t work. So I gave up.
But then one day I had an idea. The next time, I layed plastic wrap in the compartments and then I poured in the egg whites. This time, they popped (lifted, really) right out of the tray. I had to warm the cubes in my hand for a few seconds before the plastic wrap would peel off, but once that was done, the plastic wrap peeled right off, and I put the frozen cubes of egg white into a baggy for longer storage.
I give them a day to thaw out, but I have not had any problems using them so far. I’ve even made macarons with my frozen-then-thawed egg whites and have been successful.