A question about an egg wash. Don't laugh!

[LeftofObama]

I decided I'm going to try a stenciled pie crust and the directions say to lightly brush the stencil with an egg wash. I've never used an egg wash before so my question is; do I use only the egg white or do I beat the entire egg?

I'm going to be out for a while, but I'll check back in a few hours. Thanks in advance.

[Major Nikon]

1. Beat the egg until it turns uniformly pale yellow

Then add an equal part water while still beating.

[msanthrope]

2. That's right. nt

[LeftofObama]

4. Thank you!

[LeftofObama]

3. Thank you so much!

[Warpy]

5. I like Julia Child's description of beating a whole egg

"until it's yellow and sticky with rage." If you have only one pie to do, use it as is. If you have several, mix up to 1:1 proportion of water or even milk. If I'm really doing it up right, I'll also add some turbinado sugar, which is a really coarse granulated sugar, lightly sprinkled over the egg wash to give sparkle and a little crunch.

[LeftofObama]

6. Thank you.

I'm putting the egg wash over a stencil and then sprinkling cinnamon sugar over the stencil to make the pattern on the crust.

[CTyankee]

8. I am seeing online that you add 1 tbs of water to the beaten egg, not equal parts each.

I'm confused.

I am making baked brie, with puff pastry. I'll be putting sour cherry preserves (from France via Whole Foods) on half of the brie and apricot preserves on the other half (under the pastry, of course). Given that, would you recommend an egg wash with milk or water. And is it the whole egg?

[Warpy]

9. Egg wash is the whole egg. You can add up to an equal volume

of water or milk or you don't have to add anything at all.

I always used water if I had a lot of stuff to slick up and I never bothered to measure. It's really not all that critical.

[CTyankee]

10. OK, as long as it's fine with puff pastry dough...thanks

[Aerows]

11. I use milk

I only buy 1% though, so with richer milk it may be different.

[winter is coming]

7. Agree with the other responses, but I wanted to add that you can also

use fake eggs (like EggBeaters), undiluted.