Is eating cake batter truly bad for you?

Hasn’t killed me in more than 50 years.

You’re supposed to scoop out as much as possible and put it into the cake pan. But there’s bound to be a little left (only a killjoy would use a rubber scraper). My mother’s policy was always “mother’s helper licks the bowl.”

I think it has to do with the possibility of the eggs in the batter maybe carrying salmonella bacteria…which was not known of years ago but…they knew you might become ill from eating raw batter.

I think everyone has licked their fair share of batter bowls in their time…here we still are. lol

@Jeruba I had a lot of batter left over. Probably enough for 5 cupcakes. And I sill filled the pan too high..

You’ll be fine…but you might gain a few extra oz. lol

If you’re pregnant or immuno-compromised then you should probably avoid it.

It’s the whole “don’t eat raw eggs” thing, because raw eggs may have salmonella (or they may not). The other bad part is all the fat and sugar, but we can assume that if you have cake batter in the first place, you’ve thrown caution to the wind in terms of calories.

If you weren’t supposed to eat cake batter, G-d wouldn’t have made it taste so good, would She?

^^ Same with raw cookie dough.

@chyna chocolate chip cookie dough is far better than the baked goods!

@janbb A guy I worked with would buy the roll of choc. chip cookie dough and just knaw on it, wrap it back up, until he wanted to knaw on it some more. Single guys, sigh.

As someone who makes 2–3 batched of cupcakes a week, I can say I haven’t had any side effects. However I tend to skip eggs in my recipes, so the whole salmonella Fitzgerald thing ain’t an issue in my kitchen.

When my great grandma made pies she would use the pie crust dough trimmings and make these little cinnamon roll things…OMG!

Sooo good…she would sprinkle cinnamon sugar on the leftover rolled out dough and then roll it up and slice it into little rolls and bake.

She was 98 when she died in 1981….still baking and scraping the bowls of everything. lol

Only if it has eggs in it (which is most certainly will).

No. It’s your birthday, you can do whatever you want.

I heard that an ice cream shop had to… recall – I guess is the proper word… their flavor of cake batter ice cream because it was giving people salmonella poisoning. Whether or not this makes the actual batter bad for you remains a mystery but either way, I think it’s a point for your mom. :)

@IBERnineD, how do you make cupcakes without eggs?

@Jeruba I use oil and milk, binds it quite nicely! I also sometimes use a puree like sweet potato or tomato. You can’t taste it I promise :)

I been eating a raw egg every morning for breakfast for the past 5 years and have yet to get sick from it.

I think people get sick from dough because they eat too much. How many spoonfulls of sugar butter can you eat before you want to ralph?

How much oil and how much milk add up to one egg? This is fascinating. No effect on the texture or taste?

@janbb Course, by the same logic, G-d made the Black Plague, small pox and scorpion stings, so then how are those fatal?

@Minute_And_A_Huff Oh pish!

@Coloma My grandma used to make those pie crust swirls too! They are yummy!

As a serious baker, I feel it is my duty to taste cake batter, brownie batter, or cookie dough before baking it and giving it to others. Anyone who’s watched Hell’s Kitchen knows that a decent chef tastes the food to make sure it is perfect! It would be very irresponsible of me not to lick the bowl. And, because tastes very, I take the additional precaution of giving each of my children a sample. We all have to make sure the finished product will taste good! A little risk of salmonella is a small price to pay for culinary excellence.

According to The Egg People (who are not at all biased, I’m sure), the risk of salmonella from eggs is very low. About 1 in every 20,000 eggs is estimated to be contaminated with the salmonella bacteria, and that 1 egg would have to be eaten raw or undercooked to make you sick.

@MissAusten

Yes, and..I am pretty sure the bacteria is just on the shells not the actual contents of the egg.

The egg itself is sterile but the bacteria gets into the egg from the broken shell.

Oh..and I think I remember from somewhere you can wash eggs in soap and cold water…but never warm or hot as it causes the pouris (sp ) shell to absorb.

Stuff I knew when I kept hens some years ago.

@Coloma Actually, salmonella on the shell itself is more rare these days because eggs now are cleaned up pretty well before being shipped off to the market. Some hens have the bacteria in their ovaries, and it is transmitted into the egg before the shell forms. source

@MissAusten

Cool…that’s interesting! I no longer have hens..but..am on my way out to dose my goose with a sprained hock with some anti-inflamatory meds.

When I had chickens I was also told to not eat any eggs for 2 weeks after medicating a bird.

My girl goose is in menopause now. lol

But…goose eggs make for some amazingly fluffy cakes!

A client of mine brings me fresh eggs from his chickens. Am I supposed to wash them before using them? I haven’t been.

@Jeruba Well, obviously it hasn’t hurt you yet, so why bother now?

@Jeruba

Usually not an issue, unless they are poopy. lol

@Coloma Grey poupon?

@janbb

Hahahahaha

Long long ago, salmonella happened less often because chickens weren’t in such close quarters spreading it to each other. Things may now be getting better, but it’s the unsanitary conditions that cause salmonella to quickly spread in chickens.

I don’t know how much good cleaning off the eggs would really do. I don’t trust eggs marked free range, becuase there aren’t any laws that restrict which eggs you may call “free range” or “cage free”. I’d only trust raw eggs if I bought them from the Amish or from a farm where I saw the chickens running around.

Well it can be if the eggs have salmonella