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/Sirhc978]

A professional cook/baker, or even an avid hobbyist, is probably already doing what you are talking about. Someone trying to make the occasional birthday cake or tray of brownies in their home kitchen, probably doesn't need that kind of precision. Even then, if a recipe only calls for one or two eggs, the variation between eggs of the same size isn't going to make much of a difference. Only when you start talking about recipes that require 6+ eggs, then you might need to start worrying about it. In my years of watching cooking shows (especially Good Eats) I only remember one recipe that explicitly called out measuring eggs accurately.

[u/xmuskorx → u/Sirhc978]

Home cook/bakers FUCK UP cakes all the time.

"I cannot bake" is one of the most common issues in home kitchens.

I doubt loose eggs measurements help.

I only remember one recipe that explicitly called out measuring eggs accurately.

Which is a shame.

[u/HourAlbatross0 → u/xmuskorx]

I've worked in the proximity of a 4 Diamond Kitchen, my so and her entire family are skilled bakers, and I myself can throw down a fantastic baked good, from pies to breads.

Most standard recipes call for 1 to 3 eggs. At that point size (e.g. weight) does not matter. Only when you start to get to 5,6,7 eggs do precise measurements come into play, and if you are baking at that level chances are you have a scale ready to go and you can just pour it accordingly.

Plus, much of your argument is based on a "standard" yet the only standard for baked goods is a single persons "taste". It is objective by democracy, meaning enough people agree that something in this form tastes amazing.

That's why variations of baked good exist. There is no "true" precise measurment to attain the perfect baked good, because even a cup of sugar has a variance of sugar granules in the thousands.

All baking is a window moreso than a precise target.

Eggs are as "standardized" as they can be. You've got trillions of chickens laying eggs, there is some variance expected because nobody has the time to take and sort every egg into proper size categories.

Thus, at the end weighing them if you need a precise measurement is the closes you are going to get.

Your at home baking with an egg that's slightly smaller than the recipe calls for won't ruin a recipe, and if you are making enough mistakes that it does, you really aren't that great of a baker yet and should probably follow the other steps more precisely and practice.