quality of eggs for baking

[jsaimd]

What do you use for baking. I almost always get cage free eggs, but save my farmer's market fresh eggs for savory egg starring dishes.

Me:

Cheapest cage free eggs:
Cookies, brownies, pancakes, things that have just 1-2 eggs as a binder.

Moderate organic eggs:
Genoise or cakes that are eggy or rely on eggs for leavening, meringue or mousses so you don't get that sulphury taste.

Fresh farm eggs:
Never use in baking.

How about you?

[Bryn]

I use cheap store brand (lucerne) AA large eggs for baking and the Specialty eggs by Lucerne with the lutein, Omega 3s and something else in them for eating.

[greygarious]

The poultry farm eggs are for stand-alone egg dishes - basically defined as those in which the deeper yolk color can be seen. I don't taste a difference among eggs when they are used as binder or in baking, so when supermarket eggs are on sale i buy them.

The Boston area just had news reports and undercover filmed footage of inhumane treatment at the huge Maine egg farm which supplies the larger supermarkets here, so I will read the carton labels and not buy if I think they could be from that source. Jsaimd, please be aware that "cage-free" isn't as good as it sounds. Chickens crowded into large, windowless sheds, crammed like Times Square on New Year's Eve, meet the definition of "cage-free". The technical term is "high density floor confinement". Free-range is completely different.

[Ruth Lafler]

I agree -- there's not much point in using really expensive eggs in the situation you described.

The last time I bought expensive farmers market eggs was for making lemon curd.

[Bryn]

I bet it was really yellow!

[ipsedixit]

I use whatever eggs I have on hand for baking. Makes little difference as long as the eggs are either Grade A or AA.