Scaling up a Recipe–What to do about Egg

This topic has 5 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 4 months ago by Mike Nolan.

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July 15, 2017 at 9:10 pm #8289
BakerAunt
Participant
I'm scaling up a recipe (the KAF Eggnog Scones--frozen eggnog in freezer and cinnamon chips to use up). I'm increasing it by 25%. The original recipe takes one egg. I'm thinking of using one egg and a tsp. of flax meal with 1 Tbs. of water for the additional egg. Does that seem reasonable?

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July 16, 2017 at 1:58 am #8291
RiversideLen
Participant
Sounds reasonable to me. I often find myself cutting a recipe in half, and if the whole recipe calls for 3 eggs I will either use one egg only, or one egg and a tablespoon of flax seed with 2 tablespoons of water, or one whole egg and an egg white, all depending on my mood and what I'm making.
July 16, 2017 at 4:51 am #8294
cwcdesign
Participant
One of the things I dislike about Ina Garten's baking recipes is that she always uses extra large eggs. So I googled egg size substitutions and it says that you can use large eggs in place for one or two eggs. I think this means that the amount of egg is more flexible than we think.

I like your idea of using the flax seed and water - let us know how it turns out
July 16, 2017 at 7:46 am #8296
BakerAunt
Participant
My partial egg substitution worked. I will do that again if I have need for a fraction of an egg.

I remember Mike mentioning that professional bakeries use liquid eggs, which is faster, more convenient, and more accurate for bulk baking. I've also seen recipes that call for breaking the eggs into a measuring cup until a certain amount is reached. I once read in Ruth Levy Birnbaum's blog that someone contacted her about a recipe in The Cake Bible that had stopped working. RLB determined that eggs have changed--I don't remember if it was in volume or in proportion of yolk to white.

Even in a regular carton of large eggs, I have noted that sometimes an egg or two is noticeably smaller than the others. The local grocery here tends only to have sales on extra large eggs, which surprises me.
July 16, 2017 at 12:04 pm #8303
aaronatthedoublef
Participant
Thanks for the tip!

My family's favorite cake recipe is from the cake bible and calls for something like 2.5 egg whites or you can measure by weight which is what I usually do.

I've only worked in a couple of bakeries and the recipes were all numbers of large eggs. But I always cracked them into a separate bowl or measuring cup and added them to the recipe in case some shell went with the egg.

I know with my pancake/waffle mix I've upped everything except the eggs and it still seems to work. And I used flax meal in it so maybe that is why it's worked without adding more egg.
July 16, 2017 at 12:07 pm #8304
Mike Nolan
Keymaster
A quick search didn't find anything about how eggs have changed over the years, but I suspect that commercial egg production, especially the diet they feed the chickens, is more geared towards increasing quantity than nutrition or taste, except perhaps if you buy high Omega 3 eggs.

It seems to me that 'large' eggs aren't as big as they used to be, but maybe that's just bad memory.

A year or two ago my wife left the eggs out of a waffle batter she was making, and they were pretty good even without the eggs. We've made it that way at least once more on purpose.
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