Why is it that sometimes when you boil an egg and then leave it to cool before peeling the shell, the shell sometimes comes off nice and clean and you end up with a whole egg yet other times a lot of the white of the egg comes away with the shell and you end up with a mishaped and half the white gone egg? What causes this to happen?

I'm not sure why it happens,but if you put the boiled eggs into cold water for a few minutes the shell comes off easily.

I don't know either. But the other day I didn't have time to do anything with them after I boiled them. So I just put them in the fridge and when I came back home that night the shells came off really easily. So I think the trick must be cooling them off, like red suggested.

I always make a couple extra, just in case they all have to be pretty:)

Usually there is one in the bunch that just doesn't want to cooperate:rolleyes:

Could also be to the freshness of the egg itself.

When worked in restaurants, we would bring water to full boil then put in eggs and let that go for 13 min and then drain and put eggs in iced water.

This helps as depending on situation, there may need to be 'Many' eggs needed to be peeled and it seems to make it easier for the person peeling the eggs.

My wife takes them straight out of the boiling water and puts them in a pan of ice water. They peel real easy.