A simple kitchen hack promises to make peeling boiled eggs effortless: add one teaspoon of baking powder to the boiling water before cooking. The tip comes from Kerry Whelpdale, a content creator known for recipes alongside travel and fashion posts, who shared the method in an Instagram video.
The one-ingredient trick
Whelpdale, whose recipes have featured in BBC Good Food, starts by adding one teaspoon of baking powder (or bicarbonate of soda) to a pan of boiling water. She then lowers the eggs in carefully and covers the pan with a lid. After boiling, she removes each egg, taps it on the pan's edge, and peels the shell away with her fingers, leaving no stubborn fragments attached.
In the Instagram caption, she wrote: "Who else hates battling with boiled eggs that just won't peel? Here's the ultimate hack: add 1 tsp of baking powder (or bicarb of soda) to the water when boiling, and the shells practically slide off. Simple. Genius. Life-changing."
Viewer reactions and additional tips
The video has drawn thousands of views, likes, and comments. One user commented: "Game changer." Another wrote: "Wow [I] need to try this, you clever clogs."
The age of the eggs is also thought to affect peelability. Eggs several days old are generally easier to peel than fresh ones because their lower acidity makes the egg white less likely to stick to the inner shell membrane.
Another method for easy peeling involves an ice bath. Chef Christopher Kimball, co-founder of America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country and head of 177 Milk Street, has described it as the "holy grail" for peelable eggs. In a TikTok video, he explained: "The trick here is a big ice bath for three minutes. Get the inside of the egg to get smaller, pull away from the shell and now it's going to be easy to peel." He added: "There we go, finally the holy grail is boiling them for eight minutes for 40 seconds and put them in a big ice bath for three minutes. And every egg, not 80 percent, not 90 percent, every egg is going to be easy to peel."
