I was going to try and make royal icing with egg whites instead of merigue powder, but I am scared to death to use raw eggs. How can you tell if they are bad or not?
I don't think there's a way to tell. The problem is, the eggs don't have to be "bad" to have the salmonella bacteria. Cooking kills the bacteria, so as long as you're cooking them, it doesn't really matter.
Can you buy pasteurized egg whites? I've heard that some are not good for meringue (and I would guess that applies to royal icing as well), but some are.
Laura.
I have heard that good eggs don't float. As eggs get old, they ferment or something and there are more gasses in them causing them to float if put in water. But, I agree about the salmonella, eggs should be cooked to be certain to kill salmonella. I make royal icing with merengue powder and I can be certain it is safe.
If you are concerned about salmonella, you can't. If you mean when eggs go bad as in rotten. You will know big time. The smell of rotten eggs is impossible to miss. Ok, on the Salmonella issue. I use raw eggs in things with out ill effect, but I don't have a compromised immune system. I wouldn't feed it to someone without warning and I definitely wouldn't give it to small children. If you are making something for sale, don't do it. Play it safe. Here is another way of looking at it, will you eat a dipping egg? One with a runny yolk? If so you are taking the same chance, because the yolk is not cooked hot enough to kill the salmonella. If I am incorrect in this, someone please correct me.
For mor information-
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets/Salmonella_Questions_&_Answers/index.asp
thank you for all of your advice. I will be safe and stick with the MP.
I suppose I should care more but I've never been one to be worried about eating raw eggs. Cookie dough and cake batter are right beside whole grains and vegetables on my list 
My tendencies aside, I would guess that even if you DID happen to use an egg that wasn't the freshest, most people don't really eat the royal icing pieces anyway do they? (Not totally sure on this one, correct me if I'm wrong)..
Salmonella is in eggs comes from the chicken, not lack of freshness. Some chickens have salmonella bacteria in their intestinal system. If they have it, their eggs have it. The problem is that it doesn't
make the chicken sick; so no one knows if a flock is infected or that their eggs are contaimnated. Most eggs in American markets are perfectly safe to eat raw. Unfortuantely, there is no way to identify that one egg that isn't. So we eaters of cookie dough and cake batters etc. just take a slight chance.
There was a icecream stand not to far from me that got shut down because of Salmonella. They evidently weren't cooking the eggs for the icecream. It was in a small town, so of coarse everyone found out about it. I guess I wouldn't take a chance with other people. But, now me.....I love cookie dough and cake batter and pie dough and...well you get the point.
the eggs float when they're older because the older the egg is the more of an air pocket there is between the shell and the skin........that's why when you make deviled eggs if you get REALLY fresh eggs they're super hard to peel...but if you use eggs that are a week older or so they peel much easier.......another way to tell if it's fresh is to crack it on a plate and if the yolk has separated from all the white it's usually a good indicator that's it's a bit older........some companies aren't always truthfull with the expiration dates which is why some companies are now printing the dates directly on the eggs.......if it's rotten you should notice an odor or a difference in the color of it.
LittleLinda is right... A fresh egg will sink straight to the bottom, older eggs will start to stand on end, and if the egg floats to the top, it's as rotten as Veruca Salt!!
i have tested the eggs that way too and not all of them that floated are rotten. in fact i havent broken a bad egg lately. you cant always use this method. you have to open the egg to know for sure.
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%