HI! Happy Holidays! I have many recipes from my grandmother and mother which I love/ would love to use. Many of them have eggs as an ingredient. Way back when my grandmother had her own chickens and/or bought them (mom as well) there were no sizes (small, medium, large and jumbo). My question is: How do I know which egg size to use??? Medium? The mediums seem smaller than I remember them being even 10 years ago. Or, does it even matter?? Kind of a silly question, but one I've been curious about for years...
Thanks everyone, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Thanks for all the responses. I generally purchase large or jumbo. My hubby bought "medium" last night, and they are tiny!! :) The question just came back in mind. I'll just keep on cooking/baking the way I have been all these years! :) I was just curious. Thanks again!
When cooking, eggs "bind". With some foods, like meatloaf, I always use two or three times the amount of egg in a recipe to hold things together. For something like flaky pastry, little or no eggs seems to work better. I grew up on a farm, and we collected eggs daily. I always buy XL. I think they have bred the quality down a bit, so I go for quantity. Happy Thanksgiving.
Seems to me that in THE JOY OF COOKING (which fell apart at my house many years ago) was an article about different egg sizes. You could stay at your computer and google "egg sizes" and you'd probably come up with something. You might even find out how to use a difference size of egg than is called for (I haven't checked this out myself so I don't know, but there are lots of smart writers out there!). Most modern recipes assume that you will use large eggs. It can make a difference in how the dish comes out.
We have our own chickens who produce our eggs for us. They are "large" in size in comparison to what you buy in a store. Some recipes it won't matter very much, but others it will matter. For baked goods, I would stick with large eggs as they need the liquid for the consistency of the bread, etc.
I generally use large eggs, but I think you're probably safe using medium or large.
I always use large cage free eggs. Any smaller seem too small from the eggs in my memory years ago ,and extra large look like they have come from an ostrich!....my recipes (cakes or whatever) always go ok with large eggs.
I always use large....
I always buy the jumbo size and never think about it when I'm following recipes. It probably won't make a big difference.
I have chickens and they lay different size eggs. Unless one looks particularly enormous or particularly small, I just use them all interchangeably. I haven't found there to be a big difference in any of my recipes.
When I bought eggs I used large, and that seemed to work too.
Happy cooking!
