Welcome to the journey,the tale and the saga of our
Homestead.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Homegrown egg tip # 1 or..ew that smell.

Today we are invited to a Cinco de Kentucky Derby party, it was suggested to bring party themed foods for  the potluck.My first choice was to bake a Chocolate Cake with a bit of warm chilies and cinnamon to give it a Mexican vibe.Well,it was a good idea as long as nothing went wrong.Oh boy did something go wrong...

Let me back track a bit here.Way,way back when I was just a young teen and taking Home Ec,our teacher always wanted us to crack each egg individually into a separate bowl because you never knew for sure if an egg would be a good one.I can remember rolling my eyes at her but doing it. I remember thinking "I've been baking with and without my Mom since I was 3 lady,never seen a bad egg yet." Teen's and their angst.

Flash forward to just a few years ago.Once we started keeping our own hens I did start using the Home Ec teachers egg tip.Every blue moon or so there would be an egg that had an odd yoke or a really big bloody spot that I didn't want in what I was making. But it was only every blue moon or so and I fell off doing this.

Back to this morning.I had exactly enough Chocolate to bake my cake and make the frosting for it.Once I got to the eggs going in the batter I learned an important lesson.The first egg was just fine.The second egg though it was not right from the start.

As I cracked the egg open it squirted at me as I dropped the egg into the mixing bowl.Then a smell came and I was gagging.I had a rotten egg in my bowl of chocolate goodness.I quickly ran with the mixing bowl out to the trash and dumped the whole thing in.There was no way it was going into the kitchen trash bin.

Have you ever seen an ad about why the gas companies use rotten egg as the smell for leaking gas? I am dang sure now it would work,there's no way anyone would stick around with that stink going on.

I moved on to choice number two a southern inspiration- Coconut Cupcakes since I did not have enough baking chocolate left. Sounds a bit fancy maybe but all you do is use coconut milk in place of the milk.You can also add some coconut to the batter to bring up the flavor which I did.

While I was baking I tried to figure out how this happened.We always float our eggs for freshness,even if they just came in from the coop.



We also try to keep track of a rotation of the eggs but with 4 of us using the eggs I am sure they get out of order.And with so many eggs coming in everyday who knows what really went so terribly wrong.

So my now #1 egg tip when using your own eggs, crack them one by one into something before you add them one at a time to your mixing bowl.

#1 Used to be to float your eggs no matter what.Still important so maybe the two should actually be a tie.

I have set the bowl of eggs to one side until later today when I can go back and float them.My first thought was to dump them all but I'll see I how much I trust them after we float them.Something about that smell has really turned me off of the idea of eggs today.

Wish me luck today,there will be a betting pool on the race today.$1 gets you a ticket,winner takes the whole pot.

Rois

7 comments:

  1. A very good, wise, kind reminder.
    Sorry about the stink!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's the main thing I am paranoid about when giving eggs to my citified friends. Maybe it would help to make surgeon general type warning labels to stick on the cartons :) Something like: Chicken Farmers Warning...Funky eggs can lead to extreme gross out please practice proper precautions such as cracking eggs individually into a separate container!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Since I grew up on eggs that came from the farm we always cracked our individually, and I never out grew the habit. I, however, did not think to share it with the kids and Ms. L learned the hard way earlier this week when making eggs for breakfast. Now she knows!

    ReplyDelete
  4. So sad for you and the lamented cake. But an important lesson has been learned, and I'm glad I didn't learn it the hard way.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I know Margaret,it was tragic to through all of that chocolate in trash.I don't know if I was weeping because of the smell or the toss of the chocolate.
    It's ok I made it up to myself with Coconut Cupcakes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. My mouth was watering at your description of the chocolate cake with chilli and cinnamon, so what a disaster with the eggs. Like you, I have been baking most of my life and have never had a bad egg, so a salutory lesson there!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Marianne, The chocolate cake really is good with the chili and cinnamon.I simply add in 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of ground chili and a teaspoon or two of the cinnamon. It sometimes take a bit of tinkering depending on the heat of your chilies and how warm you want it.I also make Brownies this way.

    ReplyDelete