Which of These 14 Different Egg Washes Is the Best for Pastries and Pie?

Whether you’re proficient in pastry or a beginner baker, you’ve probably (or will inevitably) come across a baking recipe calling for an egg wash. This combination of beaten egg and some sort of water or dairy is the secret to shiny, golden brown baked goods (such as pies and croissants), the key to sealing in the filling of a filled pastry (like hand pies) and the solution to getting sprinkles or finishing sugar to stick onto your slice-and-bake cookies.

Egg wash is a simple concept, but there are more variations than you might expect. To help you find the best egg wash, I took a deep dive into the topic and tried 14 different egg wash options (plus a control with no egg wash at all) in my own kitchen. Here's everything you need to know.

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What Is an Egg Wash?

Before we dive into the test, let's start at the start. An egg wash is a multipurpose mixture made of whole egg (or sometimes just the yolk or white) that has been well beaten with a liquid, usually water or some sort of dairy, until homogeneous.

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What Is an Egg Wash Used For?

An egg wash can serve several purposes and it’s helpful to know when and what to use it on.

1. Browning: The most common egg wash use (and the one we’ll focus on here) is to lend a golden brown, shiny look to baked goods. For example, brushing it on pie crust, croissants or enriched bread like brioche, or even savory dishes that use pastry, such as beef Wellington or chicken pot pie before baking. An egg wash can help your pastries go from good to bakery-case great.

2. Sealing: An egg wash starts out sticky and is hard after it's baked, which makes it great for sealing dough. In the case of something like a hand pie or other filled pastry, the egg wash is brushed on the inside edges of the dough to help the pastry stick together and stay closed.

An egg wash can also help protect a crust. You’ll often come across this use in recipes for pies that have a very fluid filling, like pumpkin pie, or in pies with a filling that isn’t finished in the oven, like a pudding or cream pie. During the last minute or so of baking (for both par-baked or fully baked crusts), you can brush the crust with a thin layer of egg wash and pop it back in the oven to set. This thin layer of egg wash acts as a barrier to keep the filling from seeping into the crust.

3. Sticking: Lastly, an egg wash is often used to help things stick to your food. For example, though the main purpose of an egg wash on a pie crust is color and shine, it can also help a finishing sugar (demerara, turbinado, etc.) or decorative pie dough cutouts stick to it. In cookie making, many slice-and-bake style cookies call for brushing the log of dough in an egg wash (sometimes an egg white wash to avoid adding noticeable color or flavor) before rolling the dough in sugar or sprinkles, which helps the sugar or sprinkles stick. You might even use an egg wash in savory preparations without realizing it, such as in the breading of chicken cutlets.

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How to Make an Egg Wash

Using an egg wash is one of the simplest ways to elevate the appearance of your baked goods, especially pies. While it’s very easy to make, it’s important to do it right to yield the best results.

Let’s start with ratios. The ratio of liquid added to the egg wash depends on how much/what part of the egg you use. After testing, these are the ratios I found to be best:

• 1 whole large egg to 1 tablespoon liquid

• 1 large yolk to 1 1/2 teaspoons liquid

• 1 large white to 1 1/2 teaspoons liquid

No matter the combination you choose, the method for making and using an egg wash to create a shiny, golden-brown crust is the same.

1. Add the egg and liquid to a bowl.
2. Whisk or beat the egg and liquid until very well combined. The egg should be completely broken down. Think of the egg wash as a paint or glue. Any lumps or streaks that are in your egg wash will get transferred to your pastry.
3. Dip a pastry brush (avoid a silicone brush if possible because the egg won't cling as well to the bristles) into the egg wash and paint a thin, even layer of egg wash over your baked good. For laminated items, such as croissants or biscuits, you only want to brush the top surface and not any of the cut sides because the egg wash can seal the layers and prevent them from baking up properly.

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Egg Wash Test: The Method

In order to figure out the best egg wash to yield a shiny, golden brown crust, I tested 14 different variations of washes and also included a control test with no wash to compare. I used large eggs, whole milk, heavy cream and room-temperature water. Each egg wash was made as described above (except for the washes of only milk and heavy cream) and painted onto a chilled cutout of store-bought pie dough. Each test was baked in a 425°F oven on a parchment-lined baking sheet on the middle rack until fully baked through, 10 minutes across the board.

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Egg Wash Test: The Results

As you can see, each wash had slightly different final results. Here are my findings.

No Eggs

You could reasonably argue that an egg wash isn't an egg wash without eggs, but some recipes call for brushing a crust with just cream or just milk, so it seemed worth trying those variations to see how they stood up to the eggy options.

• No egg wash: Right off the bat, you can see that the dough with no wash (the control) resulted in a dull, slightly gray, unevenly browned, bubbly appearance. It's proof positive that you're better off brushing your crust with something rather than nothing.
• Just milk: Of the three, the piece brushed with milk had the best look as the browning was a bit more even and golden and it is a fine option if you don’t have any eggs on hand. Just note that the crust won’t have the sheen that you get when using an egg.
• Just heavy cream: This option fell somewhere between no wash and just milk with uneven browning and lots of tiny bubbles.

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Whole Eggs

The thing that's nice about a whole egg-based egg wash is that you don't have to mess with separating out the whites or yolks. The whole egg options had deep, fairly even browning, but also had a lot of bubbles on the surface.

• Whole egg: The dough brushed with a whole egg wash with no additional liquid was pretty evenly browned across the surface with a nice sheen and less of a “bubbly” texture than the others.
• Egg + water: When I added water to the egg, I ended up with a crust with a very bubbly texture and uneven browning.
• Egg + milk: The egg and milk variation was incredibly evenly browned across the surface and took on a deeper golden brown hue.
• Egg + cream: The cream version, while golden brown and shiny, browned unevenly.

Egg Whites

While many don’t recommend using only an egg white with no yolk, I think it’s a perfectly fine option if that’s what you have. First and most importantly, the pie dough still took on a lovely golden color from the egg white washes. In some cases, it even resulted in a slight sheen. Moreover, it’s worth noting that the egg white, unlike the yolk, had less of a noticeable smell when baked, which means its flavor will go pretty undetected.

• Egg white: This option was the most golden-brown of the four egg white variations. It was slightly shiny, browned a bit more evenly than the other and the crust had a nice lift.
• Egg white + water: What a difference a little water makes! This option baked up very textured and bubbly, matte and unevenly browned and it didn’t puff. I suspect this was caused by the high amount of water in the egg white, plus the additional water added to the wash.
• Egg white + milk: The milk and cream variations were very similar, with both surfaces being less textured and unevenly browned. While they were both ok, it didn't seem like adding additional ingredients to the beaten egg white helped, so you can probably skip adding the dairy if you're going with an egg white wash.
• Egg white + cream: See notes above.

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Egg Yolks

The yolk-based egg washes had wildly different results because of the high amount of fat in the yolk. All four tests had no trouble browning, each with a tinge of yellow and high shine. They all also had a delicate crust across the surface—sort of like the thin, papery top on a good batch of brownies. I also noted that there was a more noticeable egg smell when baked.

• Egg yolk: The yolk with no additional liquid came out the darkest of the four in this category, with uneven browning along the edges.
• Egg yolk + water: This option was the most perfectly golden and evenly browned of the four. It seems that diluting the fat of the yolk with water, as opposed to adding more fat with dairy was the way to go here.
• Egg yolk + milk: This combo browned unevenly and took on a brown color. 
• Egg yolk + cream: The yolk and cream also browned unevenly but leaned more golden than brown.

The Final Word

The egg wash you use is ultimately up to your preference. However, if I had to choose one variation from each category, I’d recommend one of the following three options: whole egg + milk, egg white (by itself) or egg yolk + water.

While some results were clearly better than others and can definitely be skipped, my overall conclusion is that you can get really great results from a number of these washes, making it easier to use what you have on hand when you need to create that perfectly shiny, golden brown look.

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