Ina Garten's Preferred Egg Size For Baking
Eggs are an essential ingredient in most baked goods. Homemade blueberry muffins, coffee cakes, and doughnuts are among the many favored foods that require eggs. But eggs aren't just any ingredient in what you're making. Campden BRI suggests eggs are, perhaps, the "most important" ingredient when it comes to baking. The site goes on to explain eggs play many roles in a recipe, stating, "Eggs bind, aerate, leaven, emulsify, thicken, aid in setting, are the base in many recipes and can be used as fillings, toppings, glazes." Eggs also impart both color and flavor to your final product.
That said, when it comes to baking delicious cookies that are gone in a hot second or celebratory cakes that can feed a crowd, you may have noticed your recipes call for different egg sizes. Some use small eggs, while other recipes may call for extra large. But have you ever wondered if that egg size will really impact your final product? Ina Garten clearly has thought about this one and revealed during an episode of her "Barefoot Contessa" cooking show that she has a preferred egg size when baking.
Size matters
While demonstrating how to make carrot cake, Ina Garten revealed she always uses extra large eggs for "everything." However, according to Food Network, it isn't one size fits all when it comes to eggs because if you have too much, it can change the texture of what you are making, and not for the better of your recipe. In fact, Erin McDowell explained the impact of using the wrong size egg to the outlet. McDowell said, "Say I say you need three large eggs in a recipe and you put in three jumbo eggs — it's going to be a completely different recipe."
Bon Appetit shares that the more eggs in a recipe, the greater the role the egg plays. Additionally, the cooking site describes how the size of the eggs you add can really mess with the dry ingredient to wet ingredient ratio. But what if you don't keep different egg sizes in your fridge?
Food Network says if you are an Ina Garten wanna-be and only want to use extra large eggs like she does, you will need to adjust how many extra large eggs you are actually adding to your recipes. Food Network recommends thinking of eggs in terms of weight, noting that if three large eggs are needed, you will only need to use two and two-thirds extra large eggs.