Instructions: Sizing up your options with eggs A recipe calls for 5 extra-large eggs and you have large eggs. How many do you use? The correct egg size can be important in recipes with exacting measurement requirements, such as cakes and custards.

At other times it doesnt matter . . . as with adding eggs to meatloaf or making French toast.

With cakes and custards, the proportions of ingredients must be right for the chemistry to happen in the oven. For the 5 extra-large eggs you would use 6 large. When eggs are listed as ingredients in FOODday (Portland, Oregonian newspaper item), as well as in most magazines and cookbooks, the recipe means large eggs. Eggs come in small, medium, large, extra-large and jumbo. The age and breed of the hen influence the size of an egg. As the hen ages, her eggs increase in size. The weight of the bird is another factor. When you open a carton of eggs, youll notice a difference in the sizes of the eggs. Some are bigger because cartons are put together by total weight, not individual egg size. As long as the dozen fulfills the weight requirement, each egg most likely will be a different size. The total weight of a dozen small eggs is 18 ounces; medium, 21 ounces; large, 24 ounces; extra-large, 27 ounces; and jumbo, 30 ounces.

According to the May 2002 issue of Fine Cooking, an extra-large egg has 4 tablespoons of content (2 2/3 tablespoons white and 1 1/3 tablespoons yolk). A large egg has 3 1/4 tablespoons (2 1/4 tablespoons white and 1 rounded tablespoon yolk), and a medium egg has 3 tablespoons (2 tablespoons white and 1 tablespoon yolk). So if you have a recipe that calls for 1 large egg and you want to make only half the recipe, you would use 1 1/2 rounded tablespoons of lightly beaten egg.

Substituting egg sizes: Once you get past 3 eggs in a recipe, the size of the egg - small, medium, large, extra-large or jumbo - is significant.

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