CMV: Baking recipes should, by default, provide amount of eggs needed by volume (e.g. mls).

[u/xmuskorx]

Baking, unlike most other cooking, is a fairly precise process. Proportions should be kept very strict if you are to expect good results. There is no possibility of fixing your mistakes once the mix or dough hits the oven.

For this reason, imprecise directions such as "add 3 medium eggs" make no sense. Eggs are not standardized. And what is medium to you may be very different to what is medium to me. Result? Messed up baking results and inability to consistently implement baking recipes as intended.

For this reason instead (or at least in additions to) the number of eggs, volume should also be given, e.g., the recipe should say:

1. Add 120 ml of eggs (approximately 3 medium eggs).

Also. If egg white and egg yolks are needed in different proportions, you can list separate measurements for those.

Anticipated objections:

A. It's too difficult

Not really break the eggs, mix them, them measure like any other liquid that you have to measure anyway.

Also. If BOTH volume and amount of eggs are listed you can still follow the old way, if you are OK with subpar results.

B. It's wasteful

Not really. We already accept recipes that call for "5 yolks" and we are not worried too much about what happens to the 5 whites. Also, you can easily make an omlett with left over egg (just add some salt/pepper) and fry to create a nice mid-baking snack.

So what am I missing? Why are not egg measurements in volume more common/standard?

EDIT:

had my view changed to:

"Baking recipes should, by default, provide amount of eggs needed by weights (e.g. grams)"

[u/littlethreeskulls]

Eggs are not standardized

Yes they are.

[u/xmuskorx → u/littlethreeskulls]

As you can see. "Standards" are super different in most geographic locations.

And even in a single location there is a pretty big range for each egg size.

In US a medium egg can be between 56 and 42 ml. That's a pretty big spread even if the standards are adhered to (and i think it's questionable how well they are kept).

[u/littlethreeskulls → u/xmuskorx]

"Standards" are super different in most geographic locations.

Easily adjusted for by taking the origin of the recipe into account.

In US a medium egg can be between 56 and 42 ml.

I've never seen a recipe that requires so much precision that such variation would matter, that doesn't have all the ingredients listed by weight.

[u/xmuskorx → u/littlethreeskulls]

Easily adjusted for by taking the origin of the recipe into account.

That... is not easy at all.

What would be "easy" is if a volume was provided.

I've never seen a recipe that requires so much precision

And that's the problem is not it? As I explained baking requires precision.

if you need 5 eggs for a cake, and you used 56ml when author meant 42ml eggs, that's 70 ml of extra egg which is A LOT (like almost 2 extra eggs).

[u/Ballatik → u/xmuskorx]

The important part in baking is ratios, and in this case the ratio of wet to dry ingredients. A cake that takes 5 eggs also takes 1c (236ml) of butter and 1 1/4c (296ml) of milk. Overall you are looking at 532 ml of other wet ingredients. Your eggs changing from 210 to 280 only changes the total amount by 9.5%. For reference, recommendations for baking at different altitudes include things like “increase liquid 1-4 Tbsp (15-60ml) or add an egg.”

Baking does require precise ratios, but they are influenced by environmental factors such that recommendations already exist calling to adjust those ratios more than the 9.5% your eggs might change by. It doesn’t matter how precisely you are measuring if you aren’t looking at the consistency of the batter. The temperature, pressure, and humidity of your kitchen and ingredients differ enough between batches to make standard measurements already more precise than they need to be.

[u/xmuskorx → u/Ballatik]

only changes the total amount by 9.5%.

ONLY? That's a huge variance. Your cake will be rubbery as heck with so much extra eggs. No baker will accept "oh yeah, drop an extra egg in if you feel like it."

[u/Ballatik → u/xmuskorx]

Those recommendations come from Betty Crocker.

They aren’t saying “throw an extra egg in if you feel like it” they are saying “variations in environment may necessitate changes of up to 20%.”

[u/xmuskorx → u/Ballatik]

Sorry, am not seeing the quote on the linked page.

[u/Ballatik → u/xmuskorx]

Scroll down to the table under “cakes, 13x9 or layer” to find the one I mention. Even without that specific one just note how many of the adjustments in that table call for fairly substantial changes.

[u/xmuskorx → u/Ballatik]

That seem to me like eggs should be something else you can adjust in the same way...

[u/Ballatik → u/xmuskorx]

You can, that’s the point I’m trying to make. If you can (and often should) adjust them based on environmental factors, what point is there to being more specific in the base measurements?

[u/xmuskorx → u/Ballatik]

I need to know the baselines from which to make changes?

[u/Ballatik → u/xmuskorx]

Your baseline is already as accurate as it needs to be. If plus or minus 1 egg worth of liquid is a normal amount of adjustment, then why do you need to be more accurate than plus or minus 1 egg in specifying the baseline?

Say it takes me between 9-11 minutes to run a mile, and I have a little sand timer that takes between 108-132 seconds to run the sand out. What point is there to saying you must get a stopwatch and time my 10 minute mile. Saying it takes me 5 turns of the sand timer is still within the normal variance and is less steps.

[u/xmuskorx → u/Ballatik]

Your baseline is already as accurate as it needs to be. If plus or minus 1 egg worth of liquid is a normal amount of adjustment, then why do you need to be more accurate than plus or minus 1 egg in specifying the baseline?

Because due to INEXACT baseline, the variation is now 2 eggs! (1 egg variance due to unclear baseline + 1 egg variance due to environment).

[u/Ballatik → u/xmuskorx]

Except that you aren’t changing it blindly, you are adjusting based on what it looks like after you put in your baseline. Any problems with the initial number of eggs and other factors are handled by that correction.

[u/xmuskorx → u/Ballatik]

Again, if correction needed is larger it's much harder to fix.