“Beat egg whites for three minutes” is a lot easier to understand than “beat egg whites until soft peaks form.” Too bad so many recipes use the latter. Both in cooking and baking the terms soft and firm or stiff peaks come up on a regular basis. They’re loose terms that can be intimidating to novice cooks and bakers so we thought an explanation of the terms was in order.

Soft peaks: The soft peaks stage of beaten egg whites or cream occurs when soft peaks curl over and droop rather than stand straight up when the beaters are lifted out of the mixture. In other words lift the beaters straight up out of the bowl. If soft curly peaks appear in the mixture where your beaters have been then you’ve achieved soft peaks. If the mixture is thin enough to just fall back into the bowl from the beaters and no visible peaks are present you’ve got more mixing to do.

Firm or Stiff peaks: The stiff peaks stage of beaten egg whites or cream occurs when firm peaks stand in place and hold their shape when the beaters are lifted out of the mixture. In other words lift the beaters straight up out of the bow. If firm peaks that stand straight up appear then you’ve achieved firm or stiff peaks. If the peaks curl over on themselves then you’ve got more mixing to do.