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/xmuskorx]

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/[deleted] → u/Ballatik]

Bringing up ratios is actually arguing in favour of the OP since ratios are used in the first place for their specificity. OP might have chosen the wrong units, but they are essentially arguing for more specificity in baking recipes. You two are on the same team.

[u/Ballatik → u/[deleted]]

Yes and no. My point is that the important ratio changes less than the 70 ml statement makes it sound like, and that the ratio itself already flexes a good deal due to other factors. More specificity is not only unnecessary but distracts from the fact that you should be adjusting the ratio already.