I have seen people on tv taste their uncooked batter, and heard people on here mention it, and I don't really get it?

I have never tasted a batter, and I have been baking for over 10 years. It honestly had never even occured to me, and it kind of freaks me out! There's raw eggs in there!!

So my question is this, when you taste batter, is it harmful? How do you know what it's supposed to taste like before it's cooked? why do you do it?!

Sorry for what may seem like silly questions, but I'm honestly confused.

I grew up where we fought to "lick the bowl." So I don't think anything about it.

We still fight who gets to lick the bowl. I love cake batter Yummy.

I always taste my batter. It must be like Occther said--we fought to "lick the bowl" in my house also. Ever since I once forgot to put sugar in the batter and discovered it when I "taste tested" it, I always taste my batter now. Have been doing this for 20+ years and NEVER got sick from it. Besides, brownie batter is the best!

I always taste my batter---it's saved my butt at least once when I had inadvertently put in too much salt.
No sense baking up something that isn't right and find out after wasting at least an hour of electricity.
I made up another batch of batter without salt, mixed the two, baked up what I needed, and froze the rest of the batter (that was used 3 months later and worked perfectly).

Eggs are really pretty safe, so it doesn't worry me.

Rae

i always lick the bowl! its my favorite part of baking i've never gotten sick nor have i ever worried about it- that is until i met my boyfriend. he is such a germ freak he refuses to taste uncooked batter! he gets mad at me when i do it too, his biggest fear in life is a stomach virus and he does everything to avoid it.

but! i still always taste the batter first. it gives me an idea of how the cake will turn out and lets me see if i forgot an ingredient

We always fought over the bowl too (and the beaters)! I especially love tasting the batter on new cake recipes to get a sense of what the cake will taste like. I remember trying a new recipe out and the batter tasted like a sweetened biscuit (and no, not the British kind). I thought, "well, it's a cake, so it must taste better after it's cooked", but lo and behold, the cake also tasted like a sweetened biscuit.

As far as "being safe", eating raw eggs can cause Salmonella, but only if the egg is contaminated. According to Wikipedia (which as we all know is always right), in the US, only about 1 in 30,000 eggs is contaminated with the bacteria. I, for one, have never gotten sick from it, but it's a risk I only take when I'm not pregnant.

MMM I almost love cake batter more than the finished cake... does that make me bad???

Thanks everyone. It wasn't so much that i was concerned about the germs from the eggs or anything, I'm really not a germaphobe, its more along the lines of it never even occurred to me to do it. In my head it seems like it would taste gross?

This^ is me too. I love cake batter and my kids get mad if they dont get to lick the spoon.

I have been eating cake and cookie batter all my life. Nothing better!!!!!

Funny that you brought this up tonight... I just saw Lily on Cupcake Wars lick HALF the batter on her finger and then wipe the other half back onto the side of her mixing bowl of batter--disgusting! That's worse than double-dipping chips--just gross!

On a side note... I thought it was inappropriate to comment if the carpenter couldn't finish her display in two hours that she'd rip his beard off his face--so rude.

CWR41 - I thought the same thing! I thought she was going to bring out a whip and crack it!!

On topic, I've licked batter all my life and we were always fighting for the beaters growing up. Now my kids are fighting for the beaters. I wish they had a mixer with 4 beaters...

i love raw batter or cookie dough ooh ooh and brownie batter... I kinda like it better than the baked product.

Me too. I'm a cake batter tester. I never got sick from it. I don't let my kids have it though. It's one of those.... Only Mommy can things

I love tasting the batter to (grew up that way also). But I would never lick my finger and put it back into the batter, that is just gross. I only lick the bowl or beaters when the batter is in the pan and ready to bake. I even some time I leave just a little extra batter in the bowl to share with the kids

It's really very very rare to find a bad egg, and raw eggs are actually a wonderful source of protein. I'm a batter-licker from way back, and my husband and kids, too. We have our own hens, though, so I completely trust our eggs.

Brownie batter, I must agree, is off the charts. But my absolute fave to eat is raw snickerdoodle dough. Not sure what it is, maybe just that it's so simple, but I could eat the entire bowl and be perfectly happy if not one cookie made it to the oven!

A friend of mine, a physician, told me not to worry too much about raw eggs because the contaminants are on the shell. He said to just make sure that if you are using fresh eggs (straight from the chicken's butt ) that you wash them really good. I'm a licker!!

I used to lick batter. Then I went to culinary school and took the sanitation/food safety class. I never tasted raw batter again. Never will in the future, either.

Nothing better than cake batter or chocolate chip cookie batter.....uuuuuuuummmmmmm.
I'm 69 years old and have been eating batter all my life......my kids and grandkids too...it is almost a must when baking....licking the batter and bowls......

There have to be more lickers than abstainers. If not, why would Cold Stone have cake batter ice cream???? That ice cream with brownies mixed in......a little bit of heaven on a spoon

It sounds like I'm seriously missing out. I'm not sure if ill be able to convince myself that its not gross, but I'm going to try... Not that I need another yummy sweet thing that is somehow magically attracted to my backside.

The tiny ammount that is on the end of the teasppon handle that i taste hasn't killed me -

The planet is still feeling the effects of
Chernobyl (from 1986) -
Japans Fukushima earlier this year
and now we have the Chillien Volcanic Cloud over Australia.... Thet are more of a concern to my system than a taste of raw batter..

Bluehue

Batter up!

Always a clean spoon. Never double dip. Always fresh ingredients.

Whatever is left in the bowl is mine.

If I leave this world because they found me face first in the bottom of a bowl of cake batter, I'll die a happy man.

Cold Stone does have cake batter ice cream, but it was taken 'off the market' and wasn't available for a long time a few years ago because of the possible salmonilla issue (sp?) with raw eggs. It's my all-time fave ice cream and I had to get on the email list to be notified when it was available again!!

Staying on topic, I love raw batter, and I'm a happy girl when I have some leftover in my mixing bowl after I fill my pans!!

Batter licker here

I always taste my batters, I generally use a finger but I am super OCD about washing my hands, I never never never double dip, and I only use paper towels to dry them, not the same kitchen towel over and over. 1/2 the time I have gloves while I'm baking because I'm that much of a germ-a-phobe.

Lol there are some really funny posts on this forum. Yeah I totally taste the batter. What works best are my children's spoons (that are very clean.) I use a new one each time I taste it. Sometimes I am paranoid that my cake is not going to turn out especially when working on scratch cakes so I taste it over and over. Not that it matters at that point because whats done is done. Yes I do have OCD.