Our charming flour distributor, who cheerfully rings my doorbell and greets me with his very French “Allo!“, is also an experienced pastry chef. How insane is it that I even have a flour supplier? Who gets 25kg sacks of flour – note the plural – delivered to their home? Having said that, Alain is a really nice guy, and on his last visit, he taught me something interesting about eggs. He said the industry standard for baking was the 55g egg – they allow 5g for the shell, so you’re looking at an egg mass of 50g for each “large egg” specified in a recipe.
(Edit 2011: Unfortunately Alain isn’t delivering flour anymore! We’re now buying Manildra flour from Harkola).
I put that to the test this morning with a batch of microwave lime curd. Sydney has had some pretty miserable weather recently and I was hoping that a little jar of sunshine might boost my serotonin levels. The problem was that I only had a mixed batch of duck and chicken eggs, whereas the recipe specified three standard eggs and one yolk. I figured that to be 175g of egg mass, which I was able to match in weight with one chicken and two duck eggs. The recipe was, as always, a breeze, taking less than 10 minutes from start to finish. The lime makes it quite tart and the duck eggs give it a wonderful richness. I used 150ml juice and the rind of three limes, in case anyone wants to give it a go. I’m feeling cheerier already…
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 