We tested a hack that claims you can 'scramble' an egg inside its shell
The INSIDER Summary:
The Internet is filled with tutorials on how to scramble eggs inside the shell.
I tried it in my own kitchen, but never achieved the perfect golden egg.
According to a swath of Youtube tutorial videos, there's a way that you can scramble an egg inside the shell before you hard cook it, resulting in a uniformly golden hard-boiled egg.
As food hacks go, it's pretty strange: It doesn't really solve a problem or simplify a complex cooking process. Actually, it's pretty useless - but that doesn't change the fact that these golden eggs look really freaking cool.
One company even invented a kitchen gadget called the Golden Goose Egg Scrambler that was supposed to produce - you guessed it - the perfect golden egg.
And while I didn't go to the trouble of buying this device, I was determined to make a golden egg of my own. So I went to YouTube and found a video that made the process seem simple. The trick, essentially, is to secure the egg inside a t-shirt sleeve and spin it around so vigorously that the egg's contents scramble, quite similar to the Egg Scrambler's process.
A peek into the comments section revealed mixed reviews: Some people said they achieved the golden egg, while many others complained that it didn't work at all. Still, I forged ahead.
I put the egg in a plastic bag, slid it into one of my long sleeve shirts, tied off the sleeve on either end of the egg, and twirled that thing like my life depended on it. The video suggests twisting and pulling the shirt sleeve at least 15 times. I decided to triple it - 45 twists and pulls - just to be safe.
Then I cooked the egg the same way I always do: Cover with water, bring to a boil, turn off the heat, cover, and let sit 10 minutes.
Finally, it was time for the big reveal. The first peek behind the shell wasn't promising.
And with the shell fully shed, I found my egg disappointingly unscrambled. All I'd managed to do was jostle the yolk away from the center of the egg. Looks like all that twirling also left a weird hole in the white.
Now all I've got are sore arms and a weird egg that looks like a creepy eye from some angles.
So the golden egg "hack" turned out to be an ultimate fail, just as many YouTube commenters noted before me.
In the end, though, the outcome's not too surprising.
Eggs are actually equipped with thick ropes of protein called chalazae that serve the sole purpose of anchoring the yolk in the center of the egg so it won't break. (You know those cloudy white globs you see in a freshly cracked egg? Those are the chalazae!) Something tells me spinning an egg really fast inside a t-shirt probably isn't enough to overcome the egg's evolutionary design. Just a hunch.
Have you found a way to successfully scramble an egg inside the shell? Send me an email and let me know at cpraderio@thisisinsider.com.