Two for the price of one!

  With the cooler nights we are having here lately, I have been in the mood for baking!  During the summer months, the oven heats the kitchen far too hot so things are kept to a minimum but let that temperature chill down a bit and I am one happy camper!  I was up with the birds this morning and ready to bake a batch of chocolate/mint cookies.  It is a good thing that Son loves his cookies because otherwise, I would be a big as a barrel!  Somebody has to eat all of these baked goods!

  To start, I gathered all of my supplies and then warmed the oven. Things were already making me smile.  Butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla....I started going through the recipe from memory.  Each ingredient was dumped in the large blue and white mixing bowl.  Next came the eggs.  These are fresh eggs from Mark's cousin.  Their chickens run about the place and lay lovely eggs.  We are given a nice supply each week.  I am not complaining at all!  The recipe needed two eggs.  One was cracked into a small bowl to be whipped before adding to the sugar mixture.  Aha!  Surprise!  A double-yolker!!!  Yep, the egg had two yolks!  Now I was in a quandary!  Do I add the other whole egg or just pretend this is two??  No problem.  I cracked the next egg.  I figure it is always better to add on the upside.

  Double yolk eggs are something of a novelty.  They are really not that uncommon on farms but are a rarity from the grocery store.  Those eggs are "candled" to check for conformity.  Occasionally a double yolk egg will slip by but usually not.  On farms, however, it happens more than expected. Why?  Well, a chicken usually lays one egg per day for her cycle.  The undeveloped eggs are held in the hen's ovaries.  Once an egg is laid for the day, a new yolk will slip down into the oviduct and be surrounded by a shell before being laid the next day.  Sometimes, two yolks will slip down and be surrounded by the same shell...hence the double-yolker.  This usually happens in very young hens that have just started laying or in heavy breed hens.

  While this is all good for us, it can be problematic for the poor hen. Sometimes, the hen can become egg bound or even have an egg break inside of her because of its abnormally large size. Usually, both cases are fatal for the chicken.  Will these double-yolk eggs hatch?  Most likely not.  Some do but usually the chicks do not survive.  Back on the farm, Pop would candle the eggs before letting a hen brood or before placing the eggs in the large incubator.  Candling is a common practice of holding a light (formerly a candle) behind the egg to allow the yolk sac to be seen through the shell.  This eliminated the chance of non fertile eggs or abnormal eggs being placed under the hen.  This was a good way for a farmer to insure that a hen would raise a full brood.  The "bad" or non fertile egg was used in the kitchen and Mama Hen would be assured to have a nice large family with healthy chicks.

  The egg today is just one of many that I have been getting lately. Seeing this one this morning was a reminder of how many we used to gather back on the farm. When you had several hundred chickens laying each day, a double yolk was not that rare.  There were even times when we would find the absurdly large triple yolk one!  Now that was a trip!  Oh, and Son says the cookies are great!